The Road to Hell
by Sophia Hawkins
Summary: Elliot swore to help a victim and may come to regret it when years later, the victim comes to take him up on his promise. Important correction made regarding the last chapter.
1. Chapter 1

The Road to Hell

"Nobody talk to me just yet," Elliot said as he entered the station late one evening.

"Rough night already?" Olivia asked.

"I got off duty at 11 this morning, got stuck in traffic on the way home, had a late lunch, laid down for the first time in 22 hours…just got up 30 minutes ago when the captain called, and he wouldn't even tell me why. Where is he?"

She shrugged her shoulders, "Haven't seen him for a while."

"Great," Elliot grumbled as he took his jacket off, "I get my ass out of bed for nothing."

Elliot squinted his eyes against the bright overhead lights in the squad room.

"Would it kill them to miss a light bill for once?" he asked himself.

"You know," Olivia said as she got her things together, "You don't look so well, are you feeling alright?"

"Yeah I'm fine…" then it hit him, "You're going home already?"

"I came in early today," she answered.

"There you are."

Elliot and Olivia turned and saw Cragen standing in the doorway.

"Alright Captain," Elliot said, "I'm here, now why did you call?"

"We got somebody in lockup who specifically asked to speak with you," he said.

Still half asleep, Elliot tried to remember the head count of how many kids were at home when he left, "Tell me Maureen didn't do something stupid again."

"No," Cragen grimly shook his head, "It's not Maureen."

"Who is it then?" Elliot asked.

The look on Cragen's face became blank, "I'm not sure."

Elliot turned to Olivia, "You know anything about this?"

"No…you want me to come?"

"Sure, why not?"

Elliot looked at the faces of everybody in lockup for the night. Some of them were tired and bleary eyed, others were mad as hell…oddly enough, tonight most of them were quiet. Another thing he noticed as they made their way down the corridor, most of the unfortunate ones of the night were women.

"What's the charge?" Elliot asked, not sure what was going on.

"Uh…" Cragen stopped at the correct cell, then turned back to Elliot, "No charge."

"What?" Elliot asked.

"She asked that we put her away for the time being," he explained as he unlocked the door, "Given her behavior when she came in…I was inclined to agree." He pushed the door open and Elliot stepped into the cell and saw a young woman sitting idly in the middle of the floor, barefoot, her head hanging low so he couldn't see her face. She had dark reddish-brown hair that couldn't reach her shoulders yet, and she was dressed in a T-shirt and Capri jeans. Under the jeans he saw a bunch of scars on her right leg under the knee and realized who it was.

"Toni?"

The woman picked her head up and looked at him. He noticed that she wore a large bandage patch on her right cheek. She looked like she hadn't slept in days, and also like she was drunk. Laughing, she rocked back and forth where she sat.

"Hey Elliot," she said casually, "I've got something for you."

"What're you doing in here?" he asked.

"I told you I got something for you," she said, "Here in my pocket, come and get it."

Cragen and Olivia stood by the door and watched as Elliot stepped further into the cell and sat down beside her.

"What is it?" he asked.

The girl reached into her shirt pocket and took out a crumpled up tissue. When she gave it to Elliot, the corners unfolded and he saw in the middle of the tissue was a piece of what looked like bloody mucus. Elliot's face scrunched up as he saw it.

"What is this?" he asked.

"DNA," she answered.

Now that he was up this close to her, Elliot could_ really_ see her face, and when she pulled the bandage off her cheek, he couldn't stop the horrified expression that formed on his own face. Her right cheek had been cut to the point that the top layer of skin was mostly gone, the blood had mostly dried up and she looked positively terrifying.

"He tried to kill me, and he tried to get away," Toni said, "But he's sick…I hit him in the chest and he coughed that stuff up, and I saved it…analyze it, match it to who he is, and arrest him before I kill him."

"Who?" Elliot asked, "Who hurt you this time?"

"His name is Tobias Wentworth," she answered, "I need you to arrest him before I kill him…"

* * *

"You know her?"

Cragen and Elliot looked through the two-way mirror in at the girl who they'd transferred to an interrogation room.

"Yeah," Elliot answered, "Unfortunately, I do."

"Who is she?" Olivia asked.

"Uh, her name is Toni Keller," Elliot said, "I thought I'd seen the last of her eight years ago."

"What happened eight years ago?"

"We got a search warrant for this guy's house, the neighbors were complaining of the noise, sounded like kids screaming…I got in and I found these three little girls locked in the closet. Toni was nine, she looked seven, she was malnourished, had been for years, I always figured her growth would be permanently stunted after that…and look at her now."

"His kids?" Olivia asked.

"No…they were sold to him by their parents…Toni's father…" Elliot closed his eyes for a minute in remembrance, "I'll never forget that bastard as long as I live…Antonio Keller."

"You know him?" Olivia asked.

"Everybody knows Tony Keller," Cragen said, "The man's doing life for three homicides. He killed three people after robbing them; the money was never found however. But at the trial, Keller's defense was that the money was his and they had stolen it from him, and threatened him when he tried to get it back. The jury didn't buy it. At the time of his arrest, it had been over three weeks since he'd had any contact with his daughter."

"I saw Keller when they tracked him down," Elliot explained, "I don't know what came over me but I grabbed him and bashed him against the wall. At the trial he had the gall to say that he didn't sell her to anybody. First time I saw her, she had those scars on her leg from always being beaten. She looked up at me with these eyes that already looked dead. Her father," he sneered the word, "Was a heroin junkie with homicidal tendencies, her mother was a disease riddled woman already before she got involved with him. She died when Toni's three, her father who she's had all of probably 15 minutes with, sells her off to some pimp or dealer to pay for another fix. They shuffled her off to foster care after that…I _think_."

"So why'd she come back after all these years with a Kleenex of some guy's phlegm?" Cragen asked.

"Everybody tried to get through to her, tried to help her… I told her if she ever needed help, to reach me…I guess she figured now's the time."

"Tobias Wentworth," Olivia tried to place a face to the name, "Doesn't ring a bell."

"Tobias is Tony's cellmate in Rikers," Elliot said, "Or was…he got out about a year ago. Everybody's just been waiting for him to do something to get sent back."

"Well if the DNA in the tissue matches the name, it looks like that's going to happen," Olivia replied, "Do you think Keller sent Tobias out after his own daughter?"

"I wouldn't put anything past him," Elliot said.

"Do you think she's telling the truth?" Cragen asked.

Elliot turned to look at him, "About what?"

"When she said she hasn't killed him _yet._" Cragen said, "Take a look at her face…if somebody did that to me, I'd want to kill him myself."

"She said Tobias is sick," Olivia remembered.

"I hope the son of a bitch got TB," Elliot commented offhandedly.

"Work on your subtlety," Cragen said, "Get in there and see if she'll tell you where she last saw him…he may still be there dying."

"I wish," Elliot said, but he went into the room and Cragen and Olivia watched through the glass.

"Well?" Toni asked.

"We're having it analyzed," Elliot told her, "Uh how did, how did you say you got that out of Tobias?"

"Well," she started, "I'd seen him around earlier today but didn't think much of it. I mean the guy serves his sentence, what can you do? You gotta let him out. Tonight he started bothering me and I tried to leave, he followed after me. Son of a bitch jumped me, BAM!" she hit her fist against her palm, "Nailed me to the ground in some street, took out a knife and he…" she raised a hand to her mutilated cheek, risking but never actually touching the ruined flesh, "He cut me, Elliot…hurt like a bitch, I screamed, but nobody did anything. That's New York for you…so when he finished, he got up, and I got up and I knocked him down. There he was, lying on the ground, lying beneath me…looking _very_ pathetic already."

"And…what did you do?" Elliot asked.

She stood up from the chair and said, "I hit the son of the bitch, I pounded my fist straight down on his chest, like this!" she balled her hand into a fist and brought it smashing down on the table, then raised her fist and said, "Again," and hit the table again, "And again," she hit it again with tremendous force, "And again!"

That little performance was about enough to scare the hell out of the two people watching from outside the room.

"And he coughed it up?"

"And spit it out," Toni added, "I _knew_ if I didn't get something with his DNA, I'd have no evidence to get him locked up…and what he did to me tonight Elliot, he made me so _MAD_, he made me look so _UGLY_…I could've just killed him…oh God, Elliot, I wanted to."

"Are you sure he was alive when you left him?" Elliot asked.

"I didn't leave him, he jumped up and ran away."

"Alright, listen," Elliot tried to calm her down, "I know you don't want to hear this, but we need to get you put in the hospital for the night…" he saw the look in her eyes in response to the very mention of a hospital, "They need to see how much help you need."

"All they can do is clean out the rest of the blood and prevent an infection, they can't give me back the flesh he cut off of me," she said, "Not even with all their miraculous cosmetic surgeries of today. I'm always going to look like this."

"Don't be so sure," Elliot said, "Now come on, I'll run you over there."

"Alright." Toni pushed the chair into the desk and started to follow Elliot but halfway to the door she screamed and fell to the floor. Elliot caught her and asked her what was the matter. Toni pulled up one foot and showed him she'd had several blisters on the bottom and they'd broken.

Elliot picked Toni up and carried her in his arms out the door and down the hall with Olivia following him, and out to a squad car. Olivia got the passenger side door open and Elliot put Toni in and shut the door after her.

"Want me to follow?" she asked.

"No, you better see if you can find anything on Tobias Wentworth…I have an idea this isn't the first time he's attacked somebody since getting out of prison."

"Elliot, wait, how did you know Tobias bunked with Keller?"

Elliot didn't answer Olivia. Instead he added that she see, or have somebody else look to see if there were any recent records on Toni Keller; so they might have some idea of just where she had been and what she'd been put through lately.


	2. Chapter 2

"Where has this girl been?" the doctor asked Elliot.

"Hell, doctor," he answered simply.

"Looks about right…she obviously hasn't had a good meal in quite a while, she's not underweight, in fact she's a little over a healthy weight but she shows quite a history of malnutrition. She has untreated cuts, minor infections, her feet are cracked almost to the point of bleeding, most likely from walking around all day without any shoes…she has several bug bites that have been untreated and left to grow to rather large sizes."

"What about the cut on her face?"

"That's more permanent, my guess, whoever cut her did it with a dirty scalpel, the incision marks are too small to be a common kitchen knife or even a pocket knife. No doubt the surrounding area of the cheek will be excruciatingly sensitive for a long time…after which it will scar."

"And she'll always look like that?"

"The scar will get darker in time…cosmetic surgery might be able to superficially repair the damage but…it's obvious she doesn't have the money for that."

Elliot swallowed the lump in his throat as he said, "She was sexually abused as a child…do you know if…it's happened again recently?"

"We ran a rape kit…nothing recent, the scarring looks at least over a year old…we're also running tests to see if she has any drugs in her system."

"She wasn't drunk, I know that," Elliot said, "What about her feet?"

"I would recommend staying off of them for a while until the blisters can heal," she replied, "Probably a week or so."

Elliot knew that Toni would never agree to stay in a hospital for a week's time.

"Did she say anything while you were examining her?" he asked.

She started to fall asleep a while ago…she was still talking though…saying something about…witness protection…I couldn't really understand it though, maybe you'll have better luck when she wakes up," the doctor said.

* * *

Elliot heard the door open and he woke up with a start.

"Sorry, it's just me," Olivia said.

Elliot leaned back against the chair that rested next to the hospital bed.

"How's she doing?" Olivia asked.

"Eh…lot of wear and tear, nothing serious though," Elliot replied, "Doc says she was saying something about witness protection when she fell asleep. I'm waiting for her to wake up to see if she remembers. Did you find anything?"

"Officially, nothing on Tobias Wentworth since he got out of prison last year," Olivia answered, "Elliot, how did you know that Tobias and Tony were cellmates at Rikers?"

Elliot waited a minute before answering, as if he was trying to think of how to explain the situation.

"Toni was one of my first cases in SVU, I didn't know what to expect from it," he said, "I saw this little girl who had been abandoned by her own family, sold to a dealer, and…and she would not talk to anybody about what had happened to her. She wouldn't talk to the police, she wouldn't talk to the psychiatrist, or the doctors, not the people from ACSU…she wouldn't tell anybody what her father had put her through."

"Must've been hard to draw a conviction," Olivia said.

"Didn't need it," Elliot replied, "At the same time he was being tried for the brutal murders of three people…they convicted him on that instead. I saw this guy in the courtroom, insisting again, and again, and again, that he didn't do anything wrong. That he didn't sell his kid to that bastard…when they hauled him off to Rikers, I just had to go and make sure that he was put behind bars where he belonged. I talked to the warden, asked him about Keller, asked him who he was rooming with, if anybody. The warden said Tobias Wentworth, he said Tobias was doing a stretch for manslaughter…I asked the warden 'when's he getting out?', the warden replied 'too damn soon'. I never forgot Keller, and I made sure never to forget the name of his cellmate incase I ever had to meet him."

"And what happened to Toni?"

"I don't know…she was supposed to be put in foster care but…I don't know, I lost all contact with her after the trial."

"We ran her name through the system…she's done well over the years not to get arrested for anything," Olivia said, "She's never even gotten a ticket."

"Well," Elliot tried to laugh, "I guess there's that if nothing else."

"How long is she going to have to stay in here?" Olivia asked.

"Doc said she has to stay off her feet for about a week," Elliot said, "She'll never go for staying in a hospital for that amount of time…but if there's a reason she's asking about witness protection, we could put her up in a hotel."

"Might not have to wait that long…if she's asking in regards to Tobias, DNA match should come back at any time, and if it does match, we can arrest him with that, can't we?"

"Can we?" Elliot asked, "I hope we can…but we weren't able to find any of his DNA on _her_. All we have is his phlegm, which she confessed to literally beating out of him. If I didn't know her…and she didn't have the skin cut off of her cheek…we'd be arresting her for assault of a man, a sick one at that, judges usually look down on that kind of behavior."

* * *

"Witness protection?" Toni repeated when she woke up, "I said that?"

"Did you witness a crime?" Olivia asked.

She nodded, "Tobias killed a man."

"When?"

"I'm trying to think," she said, "I…have a hard time remembering, dates, times…it all blurs together…I think it was…a week ago."

"A week ago?" Elliot asked.

"I…I would've reported it when it happened," she said, "But I…my father, he…I had a hard time finding your card."

"You kept the card I gave you for eight years?" Elliot asked.

She nodded, "It took me a long time to realize that someday I would have to call on you for help…and I didn't want to admit it when it had happened. Nobody has ever helped me in my whole life…I don't know what it's supposed to be like this far down the line."

"Toni, what did you see?" Olivia asked.

"Tobias and this other man were arguing…it was night…they were in a back alley behind a block of run down buildings. I think it was 18th Street."

"18th Street in Manhattan?" Elliot asked.

"No," she shook her head, "Queens."

He and Olivia looked at each other but didn't say anything.

"I knew I had to tell the police what had happened…but I wasn't sure how credible they would think me considering I am my father's daughter. And everybody knows who my father is. I remembered you, and I remembered you said if I ever needed any help, to contact you. I found your card, but it said Manhattan, so I knew I had to get to Manhattan…but he must've followed me, I guess…I didn't think he'd seen me that night but today, there he was…and I was hoping against all hope he didn't recognize me, or hadn't seen me at the time. But I guess he must've because he came after me."

"Do you think that's why he attacked you?" Olivia asked.

"Could be, Tobias is crazy though," she replied, "I don't know he'd need much provocation to do something."

"Well, as soon as the DNA match confirms it's his blood, we're going to haul him in," Elliot told her.

The look on her face told them both that she wasn't entirely sold on the idea.

"What's wrong?" Elliot asked.

"I know he has to be arrested, and locked up…ordinarily that would mean something, but this is Tobias Wentworth we're talking about…he's spent seven years in Rikers right here in Manhattan…I don't know that locking him back up would do much to stop him, especially before the trial."

"We can have you put in protective custody," Olivia said.

"What's that mean exactly?"

"It means we'll get you a hotel room somewhere where nobody can find you," Elliot said, "And there'll be an officer on guard at all times until you give your testimony at the trial."

"Swell…"

* * *

"It's a match," Warner confirmed, "DNA was identical to the sample taken at the time of his arrest, this stuff came directly from Tobias Wentworth."

"Based on what she got out of him," Olivia said, "Do you know if he has any diseases or anything?"

"Bloody mucus is often a good sign of infection, but," she said with a knowing smile, "Sorry, Elliot, he's clean for anything major. I'd say he's just suffering from a sinus infection."

"Maybe next time."

"Great," Munch said unenthusiastically, "Now we just have to find him and we don't even know what he looks like."

"We pulled his mug shot from when he was arrested," Fin said as they left the lab, "A good basic idea but it leaves a lot of potential gaps with all the time that's passed."

"Even if we knew what he looked like," Munch said, "The alleged murder took place in Queens, who knows where this guy's going to run off to, especially now that he knows he'll be identified?"

"Well we're just going to have to take that chance," Elliot said, "There's a chance he's still in the city, and if he is we have to find him."

"We're having Toni talk to a sketch artist to come up with something more recent," Olivia added, "Now, she said he's sick. But Warner says it's nothing serious."

"Well she tore the hell out of that desk with her fist," Elliot said, "She might've cracked one of his ribs, so we might start looking in the hospitals…"

"Free clinics should probably be our first start," Fin replied, "Everybody knows what he did, he won't want too many people having his name."

"Alright then, let's go."

"You know what I'm thinking?" Elliot asked Olivia.

"To hell with lethal injection, bring back the firing squads?" she asked.

"Besides that…we haven't been able to find out where Toni's been for the past eight years, I'm wondering if we'd better have Huang talk to her to find out what kind of mental health she's in at the moment."

"Might be a good idea."

* * *

Elliot sat on the foot of the hospital bed and looked at Toni, who without saying a word, was inquiring of why he had come back so soon.

"A man's going to come in here in a few minutes and talk to you, he's a friend of mine," he started to explain.

"You mean a psychiatrist?" Toni asked.

"Well…yeah."

"I saw a psychiatrist once," she said, "Right after you found us in the closet. He asked me a bunch of questions, but I wouldn't answer any of them, I wouldn't say anything to him. I wouldn't say anything to anybody, I didn't want to tell anybody what happened."

"Is that why you waited so long to come back?" Elliot asked.

"Yeah, I didn't want to see you either, because I didn't want to bring up what happened before…but I finally realized I couldn't be angry at you forever…soon I'd have to come back. This psychiatrist of yours, what's his name?"

"George Huang, if it's any consolation, he's also an agent of the FBI."

"Beats just being a psychiatrist I suppose," she said, "Alright, Elliot, if he's a friend of yours, I'll talk to him…"

Elliot noticed she was smiling like the Cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland. "What is it?"

"I was just thinking, this must be so hard for you," she said, "Him questioning me here in the hospital, instead of back in the interrogation room, meaning you can't listen in and watch through the mirrors."

* * *

"Toni," Huang said as he entered the hospital room, "My name is George Huang."

"Yes, Elliot told me," she said, "I think we should get along just fine so long as this whole session isn't you asking how everything makes me feel," she smiled, "I assure you now, doctor, I feel nothing, never have."

Huang sat down in the chair by the bed, "How long have you known Detective Stabler?"

"I met him when he found me in Carl Johnson's closet," she answered, "I was nine. I was there with two other girls, Janie, she was 10, and Marla, she was only seven. Carl was on the verge of getting rid of Janie and myself."

"How come?"

"Because he said we were getting too big, too old, he didn't have any use for us anymore."

"You were small for nine, weren't you?" Huang asked.

"I'm small for any age," she replied, "When I was two my mother measured me and multiplied it by two and figured I should be 5'10 when I finished growing. I'm 17, I haven't grown in three years, and I'm only 5'3, do you have any idea…oh I guess you would know how embarrassing it is." Then she realized what she'd said, "Sorry, it's just sometimes I get so angry about that, I was supposed to be taller than I am, I got cheated somewhere."

"Do you think that compromises you in certain situations?" Huang asked.

"Not really," she replied, "Don't get me wrong, I'd love to have longer legs, though wouldn't we all? But Charles Manson is only 5'2 and he's responsible for the deaths of 35 people, so height doesn't have anything to do with how you make out in life, unless you're a stewardess."

"I don't understand," Huang said, "Why did Carl Johnson say you were too big to keep around? If you were small for your age…"

"I was small, but that didn't do anything to stop me from getting my period when I was 9. At that point, he had no use for us."

"What exactly _did_ he do?"

"Not what you think…we were sold to him, he…rented us out to other people…all hours of the night people would come over…and they'd size us up, see if we looked right for what they wanted. Mainly it was women, which I guess was lucky for us…"

"What would they do?" Huang asked.

She looked at him with a gaze that warned him to be careful. "You're not getting off on this, are you, Doc?" She disregarded her own statement and said, "We had to take our clothes off…and they would…feel my arms, see if they were too big…they'd feel my stomach, see if I was too fat for their liking, and they'd feel my breasts…see how big they were, and they'd feel the inside of my thighs, to see...I don't know, how well built they were. At the time I got a good idea of how a horse feels when somebody buys one, they want to make sure everything's in perfect order."

"What happened after Detective Stabler found you?" Huang asked.

"They hauled us off to child services…I got sent to another family…they weren't much better, one night the father of that household snatched me out of bed, blindfolded me and dumped me off with some other people so I could never find my way back. I've just gone through life since, going from one family to another, out of the system."

"Where are you living now?"

"Nowhere…I quit going to different families when I was 12."

"Where have you been in the meantime?"

"Eh…I went home with a lot of people," she said.

Huang got the picture.

"Don't ask me for recollections of that, I really don't have any…I must've blacked out a lot because I just remember scraps from that time…blacking out, and waking up with people on top of me, some guys, and a few girls. Though, in all honesty, from what I do remember, they were okay, they were...gentle...they were all messed up too...hoping that in what they did they could be close to somebody else who wanted them...I just needed somebody to give me a place to stay for the night, and maybe a place to shower."

"When you went to the police the other day, why did you ask to be locked up?" Huang asked.

"I'm not safe from Tobias as long as he's out walking around, behind bars would be the only really safe place for me until further notice," Toni answered, "Besides…after what he did to me, I was so angry, if I wasn't locked up, I would've hurt somebody and I didn't want to."

"Tobias was your father's cellmate in Rikers, wasn't he?"

"That's what they say."

"Do you remember much about your father?"

"I knew we'd get to the Oedipus complex sooner or later," she said, "No, I don't remember much about him. Should I? He was hardly ever around and I last saw him when I was nine, even that's much of a blur. I don't remember what he was like…I just know that he's a violent man who was given a life sentence for killing people. That's really not much to go on, is it?"

* * *

"For being put through everything she has, I'm amazed that she only appears to suffer from such little mental defect," Huang said.

"What's she got?" Elliot asked.

"After examining her, it seems she suffers from schizotypal personality disorder and she seems to borderline near paranoid personality disorder as well. Of course it's nothing definite, most people in the world do express some symptoms of one type of personality disorder or another, but that doesn't mean they all have a disorder."

"Translation please, doc?" Munch asked.

"As much as is her ability, she's a loner, she only gets involved with another person when it means having a place to go to for the night. People with schizotypal disorder generally don't do well with relationships of intimate or even friendly natures. She made a few comments during the exam that, while they may have just been a stress release for her, sound like she's grown to question the intentions of anybody trying to help her, she's always looking for the ulterior motive, the other shoe to drop."

"Somebody wants to help her but she thinks they want something out of it," Elliot put it in laymen's terms.

"She thinks I have my own agenda for asking her the questions I did, granted it can match that of the typical misperception the average person has of psychiatrists."

"Anything else?"

"Schizotypal disorder victims do sometimes to be flat in their emotional reactions to what's going on around them."

"Let's see, no relationships, crazy theories, and deadpan expressions," Fin said, "Damn, Munch, sounds like he described you to a T."

"Ha ha ha," Munch dryly replied as he scribbled out something on a notepad, "Eat my pen."

"What about the other disorder you mentioned?" Olivia asked.

"Paranoid personality disorder…people who have it are hesitant to confide in people things they consider to be private, for fear that it will be used against them. She didn't tell anybody handling her case eight years ago about the abuse she endured because she didn't want anybody to talk about it and she didn't want to have it come back at her. Child victims don't confide in the police sometimes because of their intimidating position of authority…but few children are untrusting enough to completely clam up on a trained psychiatrist."

"Maybe Daddy Dearest trained her not to tell anybody what was going on," Elliot said.

"You think Tony was abusing his own daughter?" Olivia asked.

"I wasn't there but I don't doubt anything that monster would do," Elliot replied.

"How would you say her sexual health fares?" Olivia asked Huang.

"That's uncertain at this time…first she was raped by adults who paid for her…then she went home with other teenagers and 20-something men and women and slept with them for a place to spend the night. But since she has no real recollections of those occurrences, I can't say positively that she wasn't raped then as well and just tried to black it out from her mind. From what I gather, she's had no real relationships to date; she doesn't seem to get anything out of trying to be intimate with people so she just doesn't bother. A lot of people in this situation develop the mentality that love doesn't exist and everybody just uses and exploits everyone else for their own purposes."

"But you don't get that from her?" Elliot asked.

"She seems to be a realist, to an extent, she's aware that love is real, she just accepts that it's never going to happen for her."

"But does she _have_ these disorders?" Casey asked Huang.

"She expresses some of the symptoms but," Huang shook his head, "I really don't think she specifically suffers from any disorder…her overall being is traumatized by the physical, sexual, mental and emotional abuse she endured her whole life so she's going to display very unusual behavior in certain situations…"

"Yeah but a lot of schizoids are that way _because_ of the abuse and neglect they suffered as kids," Munch butted in.

"That's right," Huang replied, "However, as I said, just because a person displays some of the symptoms doesn't mean they have it. A person with a fever and chills and fatigue doesn't necessarily have pneumonia. And if she does have the disorder, it's minor enough she would require little treatment for it if any."

"Can you say that for certain?" Casey asked.

"Very little is for certain…psychiatry isn't foolproof, we've been outsmarted by sane criminals pretending to be psychotic. Now she confessed to beating the man who she saw kill somebody…but we don't know if it was just Tobias, or if she could lash out at anybody in a moment's notice."

"So in other words, it's too soon to tell," Olivia said.

"Could be…right now things are running pretty smooth for everybody involved, but I'd watch her behavior to see how she does when she's put under extreme duress again," Huang told them, "She was right about one thing, she is her father's daughter."

"And what's that supposed to mean?" Elliot asked.

"What is and isn't genetic is still an ongoing study," Huang answered, "We know people get their blood type and _can_ get their hair and eye color and even their skin type from their parents…and we also know people are more likely to suffer from mental illness when it already runs in the family…we don't know yet the full extent of the theory that violence is genetic as well. She said her father was a violent man…what all do we know for certain about Tony Keller?"

"_Very_ violent man indeed," Elliot answered, "He's doing life for murdering three people, they had their skulls bashed in and their necks broken."

"He's a strong man," Olivia noted, "Kill three people like that, in the same place at the same time?"

"What was he like before the murders?" Huang asked.

"Now that's the part nobody knows too much about," Elliot said.

"You better see what you can find," Huang told him, "If there is a chance that what's in him was passed onto his daughter, we could be dealing with a ticking time bomb."


	3. Chapter 3

"When you were examining Toni, did she say anything about her father?" Elliot asked as he and Huang walked down the corridor.

"She remembers little about him," Huang answered, "She doesn't seem to have any actual memories of him…all she knows is that he's in prison for brutally killing people."

"I guess she blocked out all the crap he did to her when she was little," Elliot said.

"I'm not sure that he did," Huang told him.

"What do you mean?"

"Toni knows that her father took her to the house where Carl Johnson lived…she doesn't know _why_ he took her there, though. But she remembers him taking her there and then leaving, and she has a full recollection of the abuse as well. As much of the trauma that she does remember, I would think if she knew that he sold her to Johnson, she would recall that too…but she doesn't."

"So maybe he didn't make the actual deal when she was around," Elliot thought.

"Or maybe he was telling the truth at trial when he said he didn't sell her to anybody. He didn't deny killing three people, did he?"

"No, but he tried to justify what he did, and it was a stupid defense too."

"All the same, he admits to what he did…so why wouldn't he admit to selling out his daughter?"

"Because he knows that child abusers are the first targets in prison."

A thought came to Huang, "Do you know what he's doing in Rikers? How he gets along with the other inmates? The guards?"

"No, I don't," Elliot replied, "I lost interest in him the day he went to prison."

"But you haven't forgotten him," Huang pointed out.

"How can I forget that thing after what he put his daughter through?"

"You said there were two other girls in the house when you found her," Huang said, "Why is this one so important to you?"

Elliot stopped in his tracks and hesitated a bit before answering, "Eight years ago, I was new to SVU, I'd worked a few cases already, none with kids though. I go in the house and I find these three little girls, two of them are scared to death, crying because they want to go home…Toni didn't do that…she didn't react at all. Everybody else who I had worked with on a case up till that point had some kind of normal reaction."

"_Normal_ reaction," Huang repeated, "And what is normal?"

"Something more than just standing around with a blank stare and not saying a word," Elliot said.

Huang looked to the side when Elliot said that.

"What?"

"How many victims have you dealt with _since_, who try to repress what happened to them? Who don't want to talk about it, don't want to testify, don't want anyone to know what happened to them?"

"I hadn't thought of that," Elliot said, "Usually it's the older victims who do that though, kids still have a tendency to tell what happened."

"Toni Keller is not an average person, she wasn't an average child," Huang reminded him, "We deal with people of all sorts, they have different reactions to what happens to them…she learned a long time ago not to tell anybody about what happened and not to react to it."

"And I'm still willing to bet we'll find her father's behind it," Elliot added, "When she _did_ talk about him…what did you get from her?"

"Her father is the only family she has left," Huang told him, "She hasn't had any contact with him since he was arrested…she really doesn't know anything about him. But when she talked about him…"

"What?"

"It seemed obvious to me that she still has some feelings towards him, she hasn't seen him, she can't talk to him, she's not sure how she's supposed to feel about him…all she knows is that he's her father, like it or not, he helped bring her into this world, he helped give her life."

"So did the bastard who raped Olivia's mother but I don't think…"

"Tony Keller and Marissa Fogarty never married but to my understanding they did have some sort of common law relationship."

"Some relationship," Elliot replied.

"Well whatever there was between them, Toni still seems to have some emotional attachment towards her father," Huang said.

"Like what? She hardly even knows the guy, he's never contacted her, he's a murderer, what could she possibly be holding out for?"

"He _is_ her father," Huang reminded Elliot, "Who she hasn't seen since she was nine, she's 17 now, adolescence is a confusing enough time as it is without wondering where your parents are and what they think about you. I think she's looking for some kind of approval from him."

"Approval, for what?" Elliot asked.

"Keller seems to carry around his brutality like some badge of honor, that's what Toni knows is flowing through her veins as well, she wants something from her heritage to be proud of…kids look up to their parents, and even when they're absent they need approval from them…they need somebody to tell them that it's okay to be what they are…she's never had that and she knows it and it's something that she's looking for…something of a normal relationship with her father, no matter how sadistic he might be."

"Oh boy," Elliot took in a deep breath and quickly let go of it, "I just…I feel terrible for her…this is her life, and odds are it's only going to get worse from here."

Huang looked at his watch, "You've been here a long time, you should probably go home and get some rest…there'll be plenty of time tomorrow to beat yourself up over this."

* * *

The front door opened slowly, quietly. The figure cautiously stepped into the front hallway and crept through the hall into the dining room. Halfway across the floor, the lights came on, scaring the hell out of Kathleen Stabler, who held her shoes in one hand and the bottom of her dress in the other. She screamed and turned and saw her father sitting on the couch in the living room with his fingers on the knob of a lamp.

"Hello, Kathleen," he said, almost nonchalantly.

She tried to catch her breath and tried to think of something to say.

"Dad, I…"

Elliot waved her off, "I know, I know, you didn't mean to be late, you're sorry, it won't happen again…just go on up and get ready for bed."

Kathleen took two steps back heading for the hall, then turned back to her father and asked, "Are you mad at me?"

"No," Elliot looked like a shell of the man he ordinarily was, his eyes were barely open after being awake for so long, and the rest of him was starting to follow suit in lethargy, "No," he looked at his daughter, "I'm just glad that you're alright."

Kathleen slowly nodded her head and went up the stairs. Elliot rubbed his eyes and looked at the clock. He heard another set of soft footsteps coming down the stairs and Kathy appeared in the doorway to the living room.

"Hey," she said, "Want some company?"

"Yah," Elliot nodded.

Kathy went over to the couch and sat down beside him, "You look about lost…want to tell me what's going on?"

"No, Kathy, I don't want to do that," Elliot said as he rubbed the corner of his eye, "But I guess I should…it's just that…I never told you about this, but when I first transferred to SVU, one of my first cases was this nine year old girl..."

Already he could tell Kathy was questioning whether she wanted to hear this.

"Her father…I don't know, I guess he _gave_ her to this guy, who would charge his friends to do what they wanted with her and two other girls…now she's come back…out of nowhere. Her father is the most despised man in the New York prison system, he's her only living family, he's doing life for a triple homicide. His cellmate got out, and he cut the girl's cheek open with a scalpel, and we're trying to find him to arrest him…now the girl says that she saw this guy kill somebody else."

"Is there anything else to it?" Kathy asked.

He nodded, "Yeah…she still has no family, she ran away from foster care when she was 12 and started sleeping with just…anybody who would take her home and give her a place to stay the night…17 years old and this is how she's still getting by. I thought I'd seen everything in this business…and still I can't believe what I'm seeing with her…I can't begin to imagine the hell she's gone through."

"Where is she now?"

"Still in the hospital…you know, I look at her…and I look at our kids…and I thank God they're as well off as they are, that they'll never have to go through what she has, but…"

"But you still wish something better for her," Kathy said.

"The worst part is she doesn't react…she's…she's like her father…when I saw him, he never felt anything, he never cared about anything, he did not react to anything…and that's how she's acted her whole life…I can handle it when we interview a victim and they get angry, or they cry, or they _try_ and deny it happened. She gave a full statement to our psychiatrist about what happened to her without flinching once. Like it didn't matter to her. How can it not?"

* * *

The next night, Elliot went back to the hospital to visit Toni. She was asleep when he entered her room; there was a tray of partially eaten food resting on the nightstand that implied she'd hardly touched her dinner. Toni had turned over on her stomach and was holding onto the pillows like she was holding onto a person, desperate to hold on. One eye opened and she saw she had company.

"Elliot," she said tiredly as she pushed herself up on her hands and turned over, "What brings you here? What time is it?"

"It's 8:30," he answered, "I thought I'd come and see how you were doing."

"Okay considering," she answered as she straightened out on her back, "So, that psychiatrist friend of yours…how crazy does he think I am? How many disorders did he say I have? Do I give Sybil a run for her money?"

"Actually," Elliot replied, "Huang said it's amazing you seem as normal as you are given everything you've been put through."

She smiled and said, "That was smart of him. I could've told you I wasn't crazy."

"I know you're not."

Elliot sat down but felt something that wasn't part of the chair. Standing back up he saw a large teddy bear seated next to the bed.

"Well that's cute," he said, "Where'd you get this from?"

"It was in the room when I woke up this afternoon," Toni answered, "I guess somebody must've sent it, can't think of who would though."

Elliot was quick to notice that there was a small card on the bear's chest but it wasn't signed, it read only: Thinking of you. He moved the bear and sat down.

"Toni," he said, "You know I don't want to put you through anything more than you already have been, right?"

"Whatever it is you need to say, Elliot, go ahead and say it, don't worry about hurting my feelings…after all the crap I've gone through, very little can hurt me anymore."

Elliot hesitated and said, "You might hold that thought, what I'm going to bring up isn't going to be an easy subject."

She sat idly and waited for him to start.

"Uh…" he finally brought himself to say it, "Do you remember…much of anything about your father?"

"Why's he a person of interest in this matter?"

"He's not…it's just…the whole case ended and you disappeared before a lot of questions were answered…I'm just trying to put it all together."

"You'd think for nine, I could remember a lot, but I don't…I remember my mother dying when I was three…and he took over…not very well I might add, but he tried. I don't know…it seems he wasn't around too much."

"Do you know why he took you to that house?" Elliot asked.

"You mean Carl Johnson's home?" she shook her head, "I remember him saying that he was going away for a while, and he couldn't take me with him…hell if I knew what that meant…he never told me what he did."

"You told Huang that you quit going to foster homes when you were 12…why'd you wait so long to contact me?" Elliot wanted to know, "I told you if you ever needed help, to let me know."

"I didn't want to come back and see you," Toni answered tiredly as she rubbed her eyes, "I didn't want to have to bring up again what had happened, and I didn't want you asking me a lot of questions. I'd already gone through that once and I didn't feel like talking about it then, and I sure as hell wasn't about to start anytime soon."

"I wish you would've…I wondered for the longest time what had happened to you…"

"You couldn't have helped me then, Elliot…nobody could."

Elliot, through much restraint, managed to keep himself from saying what he was thinking.

"Have you found Tobias yet?" Toni asked.

"No, but we're still looking for him."

"Well, I sincerely hope you find him soon."

So did Elliot.

"I'm tired," Toni said, "I'm going back to bed."

She laid back down and tried to go back to sleep. Elliot got up to leave and then, not knowing why, an idea came to him and he asked, "Toni?"

"What?"

"…Do you want me to see if I could arrange for you to see your father?"

She looked back at him and seemed to consider the idea for a minute.

"Yeah," she replied, "If that's possible, yeah."

"I'll see what I can do."

When Toni had gone to sleep again, Elliot started out the door when he looked back and saw the stuffed animal. Where the hell had this come from? Based on what Toni had said, there wasn't anybody alive who knew her well enough to send something to her hospital room. And just _how_ could anybody find out what room she was in? Elliot took the bear with him and went to speak to the nurse at the front desk.

The nurse looked up from her paperwork and saw the tall man holding the large teddy bear. "Well now, what vitamins did your mommy feed you?" she asked smugly.

"Can you tell me who delivered this to room 704?" Elliot asked.

"I did, it came in about two hours ago."

"Who brought it in?" he asked.

She shrugged, "Looked like a messenger boy."

* * *

Munch read the tag on the stuffed animal, "Doesn't exactly sound like something you'd hear from the guy who tried to kill you."

"No but it makes it a hell of a lot easier to get delivered without much questioning," Olivia replied, "It's vague, thinking of you, could mean he thinks about her being dead." Turning to Elliot she said, "You really think Tobias sent this to her room?"

"Who else could?" Elliot asked, "Nobody knows who she is, nobody gives a damn about her and nobody knows where to find her."

"So how does Tobias?" Fin asked.

"Remember we were thinking he'd be getting checked into a hospital to look at his ribs?" Elliot asked, "Maybe he went to that hospital, maybe he found out."

"So what're we going to do?" Olivia asked, "As we know from previous experience, putting a guard outside her room isn't a foolproof idea and it could just draw more attention to the problem."

"Is she well enough she can be moved out of the hospital?" Cragen asked.

"She'll be hopping like a rabbit to get around but yeah."

"Alright then, we should probably get her out of there and look into finding a hotel room where nobody can find her."

"I'd feel better about this whole mess if we could find Tobias and have him locked up at the time that we move her," Olivia said, "He could be anywhere."

"We've been checking all the free clinics and hospitals from here to the Bronx," Cragen explained, "We've got Tobias's mug shot out AND the sketch composite our victim gave us and showed both to the staff in every medical center…nobody has seen this guy and nobody's talking."

"So how are we going to catch this guy?" Munch asked.

"We'll just have to keep looking," Olivia told him, "Sooner or later something's gotta give."

"We've been asking around about Tobias," Fin said, "Either everybody got amnesia or before he got convicted he wasn't from around here."

"Captain," Elliot said, "I think we need to see about getting Toni into Rikers to see Keller."

"What?" Olivia asked.

"I think you've been working too hard, Elliot, you sound delusional," Cragen told him.

"I know what I'm talking about," Elliot said, "Huang said it, he's her only family…she still has some kind of attachment to him despite the fact she hasn't seen him for almost half of her life. Besides, I've been thinking about this…at first we thought Keller sent Tobias out to hack up his own daughter."

"You don't think so?"

"No, I think shortly before Tobias got out, there might've been some bad blood between the two, he gets out, he wants to make Keller suffer…the only way to do that is to attack his daughter, which Keller is helpless to do anything about. By some coincidence he finds her when she witnesses him killing somebody."

"And if Keller finds out what's happened," Olivia realized, "He might tell us what he knows, if anything, about Tobias's current situation, where he is, what he's doing…"

"Exactly," Elliot said.

"Who's going to be the go-between?" Cragen asked, "He probably remembers you, Elliot, he's not going to do anything to help you."

"I know…but I don't trust anybody else to go see the bastard to talk to him about Toni."

"It might be better if you did," Munch said, "We're pulling his records to see just what kind of life this guy's already had…it's a mile long for assaults and attempted murders on countless guys, no women, no children, very few seemingly innocent bystanders…he might be willing to cooperate with Casey, or Olivia…"

"How bout we put you in a dress and send you up there?" Fin asked, "It's been eight years since he's seen a woman, he probably won't know the difference."

"Ah kiss my tuchus," Munch told him.

"Where is it?" Fin replied.

"Enough the both of you," Cragen warned them.

"What did we do?" Munch asked Fin.

"Got me."

"I don't get it, Elliot," Olivia said, "A few days ago you were dead set against this guy ever seeing his daughter again. What made you change your mind?"

"I don't know…she thinks there's something between them worth salvaging…maybe there is, I don't know…all I know is that there would be six inches of bullet proof glass between them so from a physical standpoint, there's nothing he could do to her…emotionally…I think all the damage that can be done has been, at least I hope it has."

"I think before we do anything," Cragen told them, "We should pull the records on him from Rikers and see what he's been doing behind bars. His violent streak ran in excess when he was out in society…I doubt he's mellowed out much in prison."

* * *

The prison files on Keller had come in and Olivia started reading through them. She saw something in the records that made her stop and look again, she couldn't believe it.

"Oh no, Fin," she called.

He looked up from his desk, "What is it, Olivia?"

"Can you come and look at this?" she asked.

"Sure," he got up and went over to her, "What is it?"

"The reports just came in about Keller…look at this."

Fin looked at the papers and saw what Olivia had seen.

"Damn!"

"What's going on?" Munch asked as he came in.

"Come here and take a look at this," Olivia said.

Munch looked at the files Olivia was holding, he saw the object of interest, took off his glasses and looked again. "Is this some kind of joke?"

Olivia felt the muscles in her body stiffen, "I don't think so. I don't believe this."

Elliot reentered the squad room and saw everybody standing around looking horrified, "What's the matter?" he asked.

"Elliot," Olivia said, trying to think how to put this, "Do you remember what Tony Keller looked like when you arrested him?"

"Uh, yeah, tall, scrawny, long hair, he hadn't shaved in a while, why?" Elliot asked.

"We just got the reports on him from Rikers…and it includes a picture."

Olivia handed him the files, he took them and saw the picture on the current page, and his heart almost stopped. There were a few minor differences but otherwise, it looked like Elliot's own picture was staring back at him.

"Son of a bitch," he said.


	4. Chapter 4

"Well, this is certainly an interesting turn of events," Huang said as he looked at the picture of Tony Keller.

"Got any ideas about this, Doc?" Munch asked.

"Elliot," Huang said, "Keller didn't look like this when you last saw him, did he?"

"To be honest, I don't really remember seeing Keller, I just remember _Keller_. That smug son of a bitch, through the trial he was practically laughing when he recalled the murders," Elliot said.

"Well, Tony Keller was 27 when he went to prison," Olivia said, "He'd be 36 by now, that's a long time for somebody's appearance to change…he cuts his hair, his face fills out, he bulks up a bit…"

"Yes but as much as he looks like Elliot now," Huang said, "He had to bear some resemblance to him when they met as well."

"And Toni would remember that?" Elliot asked.

"Most likely…which could also explain why she didn't bother looking you up for so many years. If the only person who I could go to for help looked like my father who was incarcerated, I don't know I'd be too anxious to go to him for anything either. You remind her of her father."

"So that's why she waited so long to find me," Elliot said.

"It could also be why she finally came back," Huang told him, "She wants to see her father, she's obviously trying to move past what's happened, so she knows she has to bite the bullet and come back and face you first."

"So what do I do now?" Elliot asked, "Do you think it's a good idea for her to see him?"

"Unresolved issues almost always damage somebody more in the long run than resolved issues that end on bad terms. She thinks she's up for visiting with him, I think it's worth a try."

"You should probably go on first and see if Keller even _wants_ to see his daughter," Cragen said.

"Captain," Fin came into the room, "Just got a call from the hospital, nurse at the front desk just saw a guy matching Tobias's description come in."

"Let's go get the son of a bitch," Munch said.

* * *

Munch, Fin and Elliot entered the hospital with their guns drawn but they didn't see Tobias anywhere. The front nurse told them he'd gone upstairs, so they followed. Halfway up the stairs to the third floor they could hear Toni screaming. Fin and Munch got ahead of Elliot and saw Tobias backing out of the room with his hands up. He was a large man, about six feet tall and looked to be near 200 pounds; what he was primarily made up of they couldn't tell but it was obvious he had some black and Hispanic genes to him. They looked in and Toni had a gun in her hands and was screaming at him to get out or she would shoot him.

"Tobias Wentworth," Fin grabbed him from behind and cuffed him, "You're under arrest for murder, and for aggravated assault." He and Munch hauled him away, "You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you can't afford one, one will be appointed to you by the court. Do you understand these rights as I've read them to you, jackass?"

Elliot stepped into the hospital room and went over to the bed. "It's alright, Toni, he's gone."

"Elliot? Oh thank God," she said, "I'm so glad to see you."

"Are you alright? Did he hurt you?"

"No, he tried to come in but I told him to get out or I would kill him," Toni answered.

Elliot tried to grab the gun away from her, "Put that down before you hurt somebody."

Toni looked down and saw the gun as though she was looking at it for the first time, and she immediately let go.

"Where did," Elliot noticed the handle of the gun was wrapped in Kleenex, "Where did you get this thing?"

Toni pointed behind him and Elliot saw she was pointing at the teddy bear. Elliot picked the animal up and looked it over and found the bottom had Velcro flaps on it. He opened it up and felt around inside and realized there _was_ enough room around the stuffing to fit the gun in it.

* * *

"It's looking bad for our case," Casey told them, "We don't have the knife Wentworth used to attack Toni with, so we don't have anything corroborating his prints and her blood, the only DNA we do have the victim admitted to beating out of him…and what more we can't tie him to _any_ murder because all we have to go on for it is Toni's word."

"You saying he might walk?" Elliot asked.

"'Might' is a terrible understatement; he's _going_ to walk unless we can prove any of what Toni claims he did."

"Casey, he found out what hospital she was in and went up to her room, why would he do that?" Olivia asked.

"Why would she have a gun in her room to pull on him? If we can't get this guy to confess to anything, we're screwed."

"Fin and Munch are working him over now," Cragen said, "But it doesn't look like he's going to break."

"What if we told him we have his gun tying him to the murder in Queens?" Olivia asked.

"We don't."

"Don't we?" Olivia asked, "Elliot, you said the gun Toni had was wrapped in Kleenex when she got it out…it sounds like somebody might've wanted to preserve the prints on it."

"Well who would want to do that?" Elliot asked, "And why send it to her of all people?"

"Well we know now that Tobias wasn't the one who sent the bear. Maybe whoever sent it to her like that did it so the police could get a hold of it and test it," Olivia thought, "We called the police in Queens and found out they currently have three open homicides from the last week where the victims were shot but no gun was recovered and they have no suspects. We could have ballistics see if it matches the bullet that killed any of them."

"Except in the time it takes for us to find out," Casey replied, "This guy's going to walk, and with no known ties to the community, no job, no family, he could disappear again."

"I've got an idea," Elliot said.

* * *

"This isn't looking good for you, Tobias," Elliot said as he entered the interrogation room, "You just get out of prison a year ago for shooting two people, then we get an eyewitness who saw you shoot another one, and you attack a defenseless young woman, then stalk her at her hospital room. Are you trying for some record or something?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," he replied.

"No? Well let me clear it up for you," Elliot said as he went over to the table and looked across at the suspect, "That girl that you jumped a few days ago and cut her cheek up real good…" Elliot tossed the hospital pictures of Toni onto the table for him to see, "She got your DNA and brought it to us. We have you for her assault, we have you for stalking her…and we're having ballistics check your gun as we speak to connect it to the shooting from last week."

"Do you have a death wish, Mr. Wentworth?" Munch asked, "If so, that's your problem, but there are plenty of ways to go about getting yourself killed that aren't as messy as what's about to happen. Tony Keller was your cellmate for years, you know what he's capable of…you get out of prison and you try and kill his daughter, you don't think he's going to find out and send somebody after you?"

"Somebody," Elliot added before Tobias could respond, "Sent your gun to the girl you assaulted…you think that's coincidence? It was nicely preserved too so the original prints were still on it…"

It was after Elliot had said that that he made the connection. Perhaps Keller already knew what was going on.

"This thing's going to go to trial," Fin told him, "They're going to listen to Toni's testimony and lock you back up, probably with her daddy again."

"That bitch will never testify against me," Tobias replied, "She'll be too scared for her life."

"Sounds good enough to me," Fin said, "Get up you son of a bitch."

"You know, Wentworth," Elliot said as they hauled him out of the room, "I have a good idea what Tony's going to have done to you when he finds out what happened to his daughter, is going to make the death penalty seem very merciful."

* * *

"He confessed?" Toni asked as Elliot helped her out of the hospital and out to the car to take her to the hotel.

"Not quite," Elliot replied, "But you could read between the lines. By now it doesn't matter anyway, ballistics matched his gun to three bullets that shot and killed a 19 year old college student in a back alley in Queens last week. He'll be indicted tomorrow and then they'll start on the trial."

"And they'll call me to testify," Toni said, "Everybody's going to know who I am, do you really think anybody's going to believe me?"

Elliot turned to look at her and saw she was holding the teddy bear against her body.

"You better give me that," Elliot said as he grabbed it by the ear and took it away from her, "We're going to have to see if we can find any forensic evidence to confirm who sent that to your room. Now, where do I take you so you can pick up your things?"

Toni opened the door on her side and got in, "I don't have any things, all I have is what I've got on."

Elliot got in on the other side, pulled his door shut, put his key in the ignition but he didn't start the engine yet.

"What is it?" Toni asked.

"Nothing."

"Something's bothering you, what is it?" Toni asked, "Me?"

"Not you," Elliot replied, "I…I don't understand any of this, Toni, I've worked hundreds of cases similar to yours, and I still don't understand it."

"What?" she asked.

"You."

She looked at him, "Are you surprised that my life turned out this way? Did you really think I could aspire to something better than this? You know who my parents were, you know what happened to them, you knew what would happen to me…you should've known this would be as good as it gets for me."

"That's not true, Toni…I know a lot of people who were born into horrible situations, had complete bastards for parents, their home lives were a nightmare…"

"But _they_ turned out alright, didn't they?" Toni asked, "Whereas I've just been a screw up all my life. Go ahead and say it, I've accepted the fact a long time ago."

Elliot looked straight ahead and shook his head, "No, what you are…"

"What? A victim? Do I act like one?" Toni asked.

"It doesn't matter what you do," Elliot said, trying to restrain himself from saying what was really on his mind, "What happened to you was beyond your control and it shouldn't have happened."

"Everybody's life is full of things that shouldn't have happened," Toni said, "But they do, and you go on, in the end, there's not much choice, is there?"

* * *

"There are no other witnesses to the murder, and no witnesses to the attack on Toni Keller," Casey said.

"But Toni didn't cut up her cheek herself," Elliot said, "Anybody could see that, she's not crazy, even Huang would say so."

"The homicide division in Queens can't even work in a connection between Tobias Wentworth and the man killed with his gun." As Elliot opened his mouth to reply, Casey added, "We can't even prove it's _his_ gun! We have his prints on it but it's not a legally registered gun, he's been in prison for killing people, by law he can't own one, and we really can't prove that he was the one who pulled the trigger on that boy. And Toni's eyewitness testimony isn't rock solid either."

"So what do we do?" Olivia asked.

"I don't like offering deals up front but I don't think we'll make it at a trial," she replied, "I don't think we have any alternative."

Casey left the room, leaving Elliot and Olivia behind to talk amongst themselves.

"And Wentworth's lawyer is going to know we don't have anything, he won't take the deal, he'll want to push ahead with a trial," Elliot said.

"So what do we do?" Olivia asked.

Elliot bit his lip for a second and replied, "I don't know…I'd hate to think I failed Toni, nine years after I promised to help her…but I don't see any way out of this mess. I'm going to have to tell her...Toni has to know."

* * *

"They're letting him _go_?" Toni asked when Elliot told her the bad news, "What do you mean they're letting him go? Can they do that?"

"Unfortunately, Casey doesn't think we have enough evidence to win at a trial," Elliot said, "Tobias's lawyer knows this so he's going to push for a trial instead of taking any deal Casey might offer him…"

Toni didn't say anything in response.

"Look, Toni, whoever sent you that gun had to have known what Tobias did…can you think of _anybody_ who would've sent it to you?" Elliot asked.

Toni shook her head, "I don't know anybody, and when it was brought in there was no name, the nurse didn't know who had sent it…but it would have to be somebody who has it in for Tobias, but that could be anybody."

"But how did they know what hospital room you were in?" Elliot asked her.

"I don't know."

"And there were no surveillance cameras near where the shooting occurred so we can't say for certain that there were any other witnesses to the murder. No witnesses, just the weapon, which we can't prove _he_ used to kill that guy with, no probable cause, no motive, an admission that doesn't do much to incriminate himself…and one witness."

"Who is the daughter of his old cellmate who would probably love to see him dead, how did you even manage an arrest in the first place, Elliot?"

"I'm starting to wonder."

"What has Tobias been doing all this time?" Toni asked, "He's been out a year, somebody has to know if he's been up to anything crooked. He has to be on parole, he'd have a P.O. he'd have to check with regularly…how long do you stay on parole for manslaughter?"

"That's a good question," Elliot said.

* * *

"So what does the Manhattan SVU want with me this early in the morning?" Jack McCoy asked, "You're a bit out of my league here."

"We have a case that doesn't make any sense and nobody we've talked to has any idea what to do about it," Olivia said.

"What case?" Jack asked.

"Tony Keller's daughter came to us because her father's cellmate from Rikers, Tobias Wentworth who just got out for manslaughter when he shot two people to death, hunted her down and viciously assaulted her and mutilated her cheek with a knife…she was going to blow the whistle on him because she witnessed him shooting 19-year-old Danny Beck…of which the Queens homicide division has failed to make any connection between the killer and victim," Elliot explained.

"Tobias's gun comes to Toni in the hospital amidst the stuffing of a large teddy bear which _nobody_ knows who sent it, somebody gave it to a delivery boy who sent it to the front desk where the nurse took it to her room."

"_His_ gun?" Jack asked.

"A gun with his prints on it…the gun matches the bullets that killed the kid. It's an illegal firearm which doesn't matter much since he couldn't legally own it anyway after his prison sentence," Elliot added, "Forensics tested the bear, no prints, no hairs, no fibers."

"So we're dealing with somebody smart who's not coming out of the shadows," Jack said, "They know what happened but why haven't they come forth?"

"Could be Tobias tried to kill somebody else," Casey said, "Or threatened to kill…none of the police in Queens have any idea what he's been up to in the past year since he got out."

"His own parole officer didn't know that anything was amiss until Tobias was arrested," Olivia added.

"What does Arthur say about it?" Jack asked.

The three visitors looked like the cats that hadn't quite swallowed the canaries.

"We haven't really discussed it with him yet," Elliot said, "You know how many headaches he already has what with this being an election year."

"Okay, so, aside from obtaining an illegal handgun," Jack said, "We don't know that this guy has broken any laws since his release up till the point where he assaulted the girl." He shook his head, "Not good…assault and illegal ownership of a weapon, doesn't add up to much jail time, even given his record, and whatever lawyer he can find is going to know this. And…where is Mr. Wentworth currently?"

"Rikers," Casey saw the look on Jack's face and added, "In Queens."

"Ah, and Mr. Keller _isn't_ in _that_ Rikers?"

"No, he's in Manhattan Rikers," Olivia replied, "He's being held in prison in Queens because the murder charge, flimsy though it is, outweighs his attack on a 17 year old girl who has been put through hell."

"And it looks like he could walk on murder since it's not definitively his gun," Casey said, "Meaning somebody else could've had it at the time Danny Beck was murdered. So our best bet is to go ahead with his attacking Toni, but that's shaky as well."

"I thought you said she witnessed the murder," Jack said, "The two crimes are connected then, aren't they?"

"Maybe not, Tobias Wentworth never _actually_ admitted to killing anybody. All he said was that Toni would be too scared to testify against him, which could only incriminate him for the assault."

"Hmm, he wasn't smart enough to keep his mouth shut, but he's not stupid enough to say too much either," Jack said, "He's not a total idiot."

"The only thing I can't understand," Olivia said, "Is _why_ would he knowingly attack the daughter of his cellmate, who outranks him in felony charges?"

"Tony Keller," Jack repeated the name as if trying to remember the man, "He's doing life for murder, correct?"

"Three times over, all brutally, all mercilessly, skulls fractured, necks snapped," Casey said.

Jack was putting something together. "And if he gets convicted in Manhattan for that assault, he risks going back to Rikers there and facing the wrath of her father, whose fury he knows the extent of. Is he suicidal?"

"The problem is while he didn't incriminate himself for the murder charge," Casey said, "He didn't exactly incriminate himself for the assault either. He just said she wouldn't testify, he didn't say he actually did it."

"He also didn't say whether or not he knew Toni Keller," Elliot realized.

All eyes turned to him.

"What?" Olivia asked.

"Tobias didn't say that he knew Toni Keller was Toni Keller…we told him she was the daughter of his cellmate…he didn't act like he knew she was…but he also didn't act surprised when we told him."

"If he said he _did_ know it was Tony's daughter, it looks like a vendetta," Casey said, "If he said he _didn't_ know it was her, then he hangs himself in admitting to attacking her."

"Any boob can pull a trigger which just so happens to kill somebody," Jack said, "It takes _real_ determination to do the damage to the human body that Tony Keller did to those three men. Man two versus murder one…" He pantomimed weighing the two, "Does Mr. Wentworth realize that he may wind up with the same cellmate in Manhattan Rikers if he's convicted?"

Casey scoffed, "He has to know he can walk on this, I don't think we can make it past the Grand Jury, but I don't want to offer any pleas up front either."

"Wait a minute," Elliot said to her, "Maybe Jack's right. We start stressing to Tobias that he could wind up back with Tony, who's going to _know_ what this rat bastard did to his only daughter…he might start to get worried and cop to a plea if it means not answering to Keller. We already told him about that once before but maybe we need to try again to make sure we get the message across."

"This is assuming Tobias knows how dearly Tony Keller is concerned with his daughter's wellbeing," Jack said, "Stabler, you're the only one here who ever met the man. What do you think? Might it be common knowledge in Rikers how important Keller's only remaining family is to him?"

Elliot's head was spinning with the idea. He remembered what he saw in Tony Keller nine years ago at the trial, he remembered what Keller said, he remembered what Huang said, it all blurred together.

"Elliot?" Olivia's voice brought him back to reality.

"Keller…he insisted from the time of his arrest to when they hauled him off to prison, that he didn't sell Toni into any kind of child prostitution…our psychiatrist thinks it's because he didn't…okay, he didn't do that, he's a murderer, but he's not an accessory to the rape of his daughter…she says he took her there saying he had to go somewhere and couldn't take her with him…that can be interpreted as he wanted to make sure she was safe...or safe_r_ than she would be with him, which means he didn't know what was going to happen to her."

Jack was about to the point of laughing, "We're just going in circles on this…but it could be very likely that somehow, the man _does_ care about his daughter…and what somebody thinks of his family, isn't much of a secret in lockup."

"We never could figure out who sent the gun to Toni, but it had to be somebody who knew that Tobias had killed somebody and knew that Toni could benefit from having it in her possession when she was near the cops," Olivia said.

"Neatly preserved," Elliot recalled his earlier statement, "Wrapped in tissue so the prints wouldn't be smudged…so we could link it to Tobias…you hear about criminals who still run things on the outside from prison but…I have a hard time thinking Keller could've been the one to have it done."

"Get somebody up to Rikers and talk to him," Jack told them, "See if he's willing to say anything that could help anybody's argument. And get somebody up to Queens and remind Tobias who he'll have to answer to if he's convicted in the brutal assault of this teenaged girl."

Casey and Olivia headed out the door; Elliot started to follow but stopped and looked back at McCoy. For being as early in the morning as it was he already looked about dead with exhaustion.

"You okay?" Elliot asked.

Jack looked up at Elliot and replied, "Somebody leaked some of the hospital pictures of your victim, onto the news this morning…I look at what this guy did to her…and I thank God my own daughter is grown, and out of the state."

"Yeah well I have three daughters, one of them very close to Toni's age," Elliot said, "Every time I think about this whole mess, I want to kill somebody."

"Times like this I'm very glad I didn't decide to follow after my father and be a cop," Jack said, "Otherwise I've little doubt I would've already been before the courts by now, probably already for having killed someone. As a lawyer, every day in court I struggle with myself to not jump over the tables and strangle the life out of somebody. Give me a badge and a gun and put me out there on the front line where this is happening and I _would've_ killed somebody by now, to hell with the consequences. I must be slipping, getting as emotionally involved as I am in this work...and this isn't even _my_ case!"


	5. Chapter 5

"I don't think you realize the seriousness of what you've gotten yourself into, Toby," Elliot said as he looked across from the unaffected man, "Even if you do walk on the murder charge, you still have to answer for assaulting Toni Keller. That crime occurred in Manhattan…meaning when you're convicted you'll return to the Manhattan Rikers…and for all we know, Tony Keller, her loving father who snapped three guys' necks without a second thought, could very well wind up your cellmate again."

"He's going to know what you did to his only child, you think that's going to go over well with him?" Casey asked.

"You'll never send me back to Rikers there," he insisted, "You don't have anything to send me back on."

"Maybe you'd like to explain then how Toni came to SVU with a sample of your DNA."

"Perhaps your," the defense attorney cleared his throat, "'victim' dug it out of his trash."

"She just so conveniently found a Kleenex with his hacked up mucus in it?" Elliot asked, then said to Tobias, "By the way, how's your infection coming?"

"That punk bitch beat the hell out of me," Tobias replied, "I ought to be the one pressing charges against _her_."

"Yeah that would go over real well, you explaining how she hit you to obtain your DNA _after_ you cut up her face like a frog in science class," Elliot said, "Only thing I can't figure out is your record shows nothing for having a taste for knives…only guns, so what made Toni such an exception to the rule?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Wentworth," Casey said, "Don't screw with me, I'm not in the mood for it. Now, as detestable as I find you, I really don't think you're worth Keller having another bashed skull under his belt…you cooperate with us and I'll recommend sentencing at a facility where Tony isn't…otherwise you take your chances with him."

"Lady, I didn't do anything," he insisted.

"Famous last words."

* * *

"Miss Keller," Casey addressed Toni on the stand at the trial, "You've given testimony to witnessing a man shoot and kill Danny Beck, and you've testified that this same person is the one who attacked you. Do you see this person in the courtroom today?"

Elliot sat near the front, watching Toni. They'd gotten her cleaned up and gotten her a presentable change of clothes to wear in court. But she still looked like hell. She looked and acted like she hadn't slept for days, it was a wonder her testimony was as coherent as it had been.

"Yes, the defendant," Toni pointed at Tobias, "Tobias Wentworth."

"Nothing further."

Arthur Manion for the defense, stood up and headed over to the witness stand.

"Were there any witnesses to this alleged shooting?" he asked.

"Me."

"Besides you."

"If there were, they didn't bother reporting it obviously," Toni said.

"And there weren't any witnesses to the alleged attack on you either," he added.

"You see this?" Toni had peeled off the bandages before court so the jury would always be looking at the forming scars on her cheek, "You have the gall to call this alleged? You don't think this is real?"

"Did anybody see my client attack you?"

"I saw him."

"Anybody else?"

She shook her head, "No."

"Doesn't look very good for your testimony right now, does it?" he asked.

"Okay Perry Mason," Toni said, her 'normal' tone gone and her regular, cynical, smartass self returned.

Elliot watched Toni as he saw, rather than just heard, the change in her, wondering what she was going to do now.

"You tell me," she continued, "If your client, the not so honorable Tobias J. Wentworth, isn't the one who attacked me, then who did? And _why_ out of all the people in the state of New York did I finger _him_ as my attacker? Him, who I have not seen at any time in my life until the day he murdered Danny Beck? And why was I able to take his DNA to the police to analyze to match it to his identity for arrest of my assault?"

The judge banged his gavel a couple of times to shut them up.

"Miss Keller," he said, "You testified that you saw my client shoot and kill Daniel Beck. Correct? But it took you a week to report this alleged murder, why?"

"The murder took place in Queens, the only cop I knew that I could trust worked in Manhattan."

Elliot heard the doors open behind him. Turning around he saw Jack McCoy enter the room and stay in the back.

"Why didn't you just call 911?"

"Who would believe me? They badger you for your name, somebody hears Toni Keller and they're not going to take it seriously. Only that detective would."

"This detective whom you hadn't seen for eight years, correct?" Manion asked.

"That's right."

"How did you find him after that much time?"

"I had his card."

"What card?"

Toni reached into her pocket and pulled out a small white card and gave it to Manion who looked it up and down and said, "There's a phone number on this card, why didn't you just call him?"

"And stay in Queens with Wentworth knowing he was armed and would kill again? Are you crazy?"

"So, just so I have this straight, Miss Keller," Manion said, "You saw my client, in a dark alley no less, shoot and kill Danny Beck, you decide to report this only to Detective Stabler from Manhattan SVU, of whom you haven't seen for eight years but his card you kept?"

"Yes, and..."

"It took you a week to get from Queens to Manhattan, correct?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"I didn't have any money for the subway."

"And somehow, my client just happens to be in Manhattan at the same time you are? And he attacks you, _also_ in a dark alley, with no witnesses. Is that right?"

"What're you implying, that because nobody else saw it, it didn't happen?" Toni asked.

"Well it certainly doesn't look good for your case, does it?"

"Nobody _saw_ Kitty Genovese being stabbed either, are you saying that didn't happen either?" she asked him.

"We are talking about you, now, is all of this true according to your testimony?"

"Yes, and…"

"However," Manion cut her off.

"Shut up!" Toni told him, "You wanted my answer but you won't let me give it. _How_ then do you expect to get the truth you so claim to look for? Look over there, Mr. Manion," she gestured to the jury, "You see those twelve people? Do you think they're idiots? They're not stupid, Mr. Manion, they know what's what and how things go in this world. It doesn't matter that nobody witnessed the attack because _I_ witnessed it. I remember every minute of it. I witnessed him shooting that young man, I'm the only eyewitness to both crimes so it would be very convenient for Wentworth to try and get me out of the way. Or in the very least try and get me shut up or made out to be a liar or a damn fool. At least one of them knows what that's like, and they're not going to be very sympathetic to your client, who got out of prison a year ago after he murdered two people. He's now killed another one and attempted to kill a fourth…juries tend to look down on those kinds of actions."

"_If_ they happened," Manion replied, "There's only your word."

"Oh really? In the murder case the D.A. has his fingerprints on the gun that matches the bullets that killed Danny Beck."

"And how did the police get that gun?"

"It was sent to me when I was in the hospital recovering from the attack."

"And who sent it to you?"

She shrugged, "Nobody knows. Whoever did it didn't leave any trace evidence."

"You really expect the jury to believe _that_?" Manion asked.

"Objection," Casey said.

"What reason have I to lie?" Toni asked, "My prints aren't on that gun. What have I got to gain from lying? I have no family, no home, no money, your client doesn't even have enough money to hire a _good_ attorney, that's why they called you, the public defender in. Odds are anybody who hears about what happened to me will say I had it coming, or they won't pay any attention to the story because it happened to me and not to some daughter of a rich family. All I have to gain from my testimony is maintaining my sound state of mind, which has been teetering near the edge for years."

* * *

"If she could control herself when she spoke, she'd make one hell of a lawyer when she grows up," Jack told Casey and Elliot in the hall during the court's recess, "Shifting focus to the jury in the middle of her testimony, pointing out their intelligence, points for originality there."

"It still doesn't look good though," Casey noted.

"Why?" Elliot asked, "She's already pointed out she has nothing to gain by this one way or the other."

"Which just says she didn't do this intentionally, but there's still not enough _hard_ evidence to convict Wentworth. They see a timid man who can't catch a break."

"Those pictures that were leaked to the press," Jack said, "Is that what she looked like before or after the doctors treated her?"

"After," Elliot said.

Jack's eyes widened a bit and he shrugged his shoulders and said, "Then blow up the before ones and let the whole courtroom see them."

Jack disappeared down the hall and Elliot and Casey stayed where they were to discuss the case. A few minutes later they heard a high pitched scream emanating from the men's room at the corner of the hall and Elliot and Casey automatically identified the voice as being Toni's. Elliot took out his gun and went down the corridor; now hearing two separate voices. After a minute the voices died down, he kicked the door in and headed in. Immediately he saw Jack standing backed against a wall, looking over at the scene opposite them. Elliot saw Toni on the floor unconscious, her clothes torn, her body just barely supported up by the wall. Next to her was the body of Tobias Wentworth, he was dead.

"What happened?" Elliot asked as he put his gun away and went over to her.

"She broke his neck," Jack explained as he got to his feet, "I saw her break his neck."

Elliot wrapped Toni's arm over his neck and helped her to her feet.

"He threw her up against the wall," Jack said, "He said he was going to kill her for trying to ruin him…she grabbed him and she broke his neck. Just like her father." Almost in shock, he said, sounding nonchalantly though he looked petrified, "I watched her break his neck."

* * *

Elliot looked in through the two-way mirror and saw Toni sitting on the floor of the room, her arms wrapped against her chest like she was in a strait-jacket, rocking back and forth on her heels, not saying a word, only looking straight ahead with a blank look on her face.

"What the hell happened to her?" he asked.

"If I had to guess," Huang said, "A mental breakdown. What happened up till the point she killed him?"

"He must've dragged her into the bathroom, he tore her clothes."

"McCoy said Wentworth told her he was going to kill her."

"The way her clothes were torn," Elliot said, "It's not like when you just fight with somebody…I've seen it before, a lot of rapists rip women's clothes like that, get them off as fast as possible, they're left with no protection, no dignity."

"As many times as she was raped before, this could have just been her breaking point. Either that or…"

"Or what?" Elliot asked.

"The last time he attacked her, she knew that it wasn't enough to kill her…but this time she knew he intended to do just that, it could've pushed her over the edge."

"Is she going to be okay?" Elliot asked.

"I don't know," Huang replied, "They're going to examine her tomorrow morning to see if she's suffering from any mental disorders."

"But we know she's not," he said.

"She wasn't, they might find this to be more than just a one time breakdown," Huang said, "If she stays like this…"

"I don't even want to think about that. What's going to happen to her?" Elliot asked.

"Well, with McCoy's statement, it's unlikely she'll be charged for the death. Self defense mixed with a mental breakdown, no matter what she felt towards him I doubt anybody will find premeditation in that."

"But?"

"They're going to move her to Bellevue," Huang said.

"For how long?"

"Until she shows sign that she's recovered."

Elliot went into the room and shut the door behind him. Toni was still on the floor with her arms folded over her chest, but she'd stopped moving and her gaze had moved to the floor.

"Toni," he said as he got down on the floor beside her, "How're you feeling?"

She laughed and replied, "That's just it, Elliot, I'm not. I don't get it, I thought I would feel something. I thought killing him would wake up something in me. I still don't feel anything…I haven't felt anything for years, not love, not happiness, not ecstasy, not disappointment, not excitement, not anger, nothing…and I still don't…I can't feel anything anymore. I killed a man with my bare hands and I can't feel a damn thing about it. What does that say about me?"

Elliot didn't know. Even when Tony was on trial for triple homicide he at least seemed ecstatic at what he had done, he seemed proud, not his daughter though.

"They're going to send you to the hospital tonight," Elliot told her.

"The mental hospital?" she asked, "The psycho ward?"

"The doctors want to examine you to make sure you're alright," he said.

"But they won't let me out, they'll never let me out…they'll say something's wrong with me, and I'm going to stay in there until I die." She laughed again, with no humor, and said, "I lied, Elliot…all these years I've felt something alright…one thing…only one thing I've ever felt…a large, empty void inside of me…and it's eating at me from the inside. All I've felt for years is this raw, gnawing anger inside of me, because there's nothing in my life, it's all empty. And, nothing is ever going to make that go away…it's never going to leave me…there will always be that huge gaping void and that raw, bloodthirsty fury in me…and nothing more."

* * *

The next night, Elliot entered Toni's room at Bellevue. She had been examined by all sorts of mental doctors who all agreed she suffered from no exact disorder but rather had just suffered a breakdown brought on by years of extreme duress and painful experiences. However she also showed no signs of recovering anytime soon, so until further notice she had to stay where she was.

This was what he dreaded seeing; she was in bed asleep, only, he knew, because the docs had her so doped up she didn't know where she was or what was going on, to the point she didn't have the strength for anything but to sleep. He didn't want to but he thought about if it were Maureen or Kathleen in this place right now instead of Toni, how differently he would react, if differently at all. As horrible as he felt for this girl lying before him, he wasn't sure he could feel any worse about it if it was his own daughter.

He almost laughed as he thought about what would happen if Toni would ever get acquainted with his kids. He'd never live that one down. His heart went out to Toni for all she'd gone through but he knew he would never recover if any of her would rub off on any of them. Then he thought about what would happen if his wife would ever meet this girl. Over the past few days he'd told Kathy a lot about Toni, but he knew it couldn't compare to coming face to face with her and seeing the actual damage done. Looking down at this helpless, hopeless, teenaged girl who was devoid of feeling anything other than pain and wrath, incapable of anticipating anything of any worth entering her life, and knowing that the only surviving family she had was incarcerated for life, Elliot knew the unfortunate truth; that unless something drastic did happen to knock some sense back into Toni, this was the highlight of what her life was going to be like from here on out.

"Elliot?"

He looked and saw she was slowly coming around. Toni opened her eyes and looked up at him, "Elliot? What's going on?"

How could he answer her?

"You're in the hospital, Toni."

"The mental hospital? No," she said, looking up at him, her eyes widening as she realized what had happened, "No!"

"I'm sorry to say," he responded.

"How…how long are they going to keep me here?" she asked.

"Until they think you're recovered."

"They're never going to think that about me, Elliot, you know that!" she pulled herself up in the bed, "They're not going to let me out of here, they want me locked up."

"Toni," he told her, "The D.A.'s not pressing charges against you for murder, and if Jack hadn't been there to see what happened, they could very well have tried for that…now the doctors said you're not crazy, but you had a mental breakdown. You're going to stay here until they're convinced you've recovered from it."

"But Elliot!"

"I'm sorry, but I have to leave for the night," he told her, "I'll come back and see you tomorrow. In the mean time, the most important thing for you to do is calm down, and rest, understand?"

"Yes, Elliot," Toni replied as she laid back against the pillow, "I'll try."

"Good, I'll come and visit you again tomorrow," he said, "Right now I have somewhere else to be."

* * *

The minutes ticked away like hours. Elliot felt his heart climbing into his throat. He hadn't felt this nervous for years. He waited anxiously with the phone already in his hand; finally he saw a guard approaching on the other side of the glass, and Keller was with him. Tony Keller sat down and looked at Elliot and Elliot looked at him and was awestruck at how much of a resemblance there was between the two of them. It was almost like looking in a mirror.

Tony picked up the phone on his side and said, "Well this is one hell of an April Fool's joke."

"Tony Keller," Elliot said, restraining himself from saying what was really going through his mind, "You remember me?"

"Yeah, I remember you…you're that cop who bashed me into the wall eight years ago," he answered, "What do you want?"

"I'm here to talk to you about your daughter," Elliot said.

"What about Toni?" he asked.

"She's in a lot of trouble right now," Elliot told him, "Your old cellmate Tobias got out and went after her. He cut her up…at the trial, he forced her into the men's room and tried to rape her…she killed him."

"How bad is she?"

"The damage was minor…physically, but the experts at Bellevue said she suffered a nervous breakdown, after everything she's gone through over the years."

"Oh here we go again," Tony said, clearly not amused, "How I did everything wrong as a parent, how I didn't give a damn about her, how I whored her out…what was it you said at the time? To pay for my habit…"

"You were a junkie."

"Yeah, how many needle marks did I have last time we met? Thirteen? You want to find out how many I have now?" Tony stood up and started to undo his jeans.

"Keller!" Elliot said in his no-nonsense tone, "Keep your damn hands out of your pants, sit back down and shut up, I'm not done talking to you yet."

Keller did sit down and picking up the phone again he told Elliot, "I ain't touched the stuff in seven years. Got a bad batch one night and that cured the hell out of me."

"Did you know Tobias went after your daughter?" Elliot asked.

Keller looked at him and responded, "The story broke on the news about her attack, when they got the pictures from the hospital. I saw what the bastard did to her."

"Did you know at the time it was Tobias?"

"I had a guess. He's the only one I know who would do it…always had to spite me in here and he got out, no more rehabilitated than when he came in," Tony answered.

The next question Elliot asked was one he had been dreading to find out the answer to, "Did you send Tobias's gun to her?"

"I _had_ it sent to her," he answered.

"How did you find out about it?" Elliot asked.

"I have my sources, detective," he said, "I'm not going to tell you. I'm already serving life, you can't do anything to hurt me."

"Maybe not," Elliot replied, "But Toni's hurting. She's locked up in the nuthouse, going out of her mind…she knows nobody's going to help her…and the only thing she wants is to see you."

Up till now, Keller's general attitude and body language had been very sarcastic, very easy going, now he was dead serious as he told Elliot, "You keep her away from here. Don't you ever bring my daughter into this place, you got that, detective?"

"You don't want to see your own daughter?"

"Toni doesn't need to see me…she doesn't need to be brought into this place. You do whatever you have to to make sure she never comes here."

"Alright, I'm just going to ask this," Elliot said, "Do you love your daughter, Keller?"

"What the hell kind of a question is that? Do you love your kids?"

"This isn't about me."

"I love Toni enough _not_ to drag her into this."

"Either way her life is hell," Elliot said, "She has no family, she has no home, she has no stability."

"You think I don't know that?" Tony asked, "Every day I'm stuck in this hellhole I'm reminded of that fact. But seeing me isn't going to do her any good either."

* * *

Elliot was just on his way out of Rikers, wondering what to do next, when his cell phone rang.

"Stabler."

"Elliot," it was Olivia, "We need to get to Bellevue right away."

"What happened?"

"Just hurry."

When Elliot arrived at Bellevue, Olivia and Casey had pulled in beside him.

"What happened?" Elliot asked.

"I know one of the doctors here," Casey said as they hurried up the steps, "He called me about 15 minutes ago and said something had happened with Toni, but he wouldn't say what."

They got up to Toni's room but had to make their way past police and doctors to get in. When they did they saw she wasn't there; the covers to her bed were pulled down and the sheets were covered in blood.

"What happened? Where's Toni?" Elliot asked.

"In the ER," a doctor told him.

"Why?"

"It seems that," one of the CSU members said, "She tried to kill herself."

"What!?" Elliot couldn't believe what he'd heard.

The man held up a folding knife that was covered in blood, "Nobody knows how but she somehow got a hold of this. She set it on the bed and dug the handle into the mattress so it wouldn't move, then she threw herself backwards on it with full force and stabbed herself right in the back."


	6. Chapter 6

"Suicide, I can't believe it," Elliot said, still shocked by what he'd heard.

"How was she found?" Olivia asked one of the doctors.

"Well, I'm certain that she had intended to do it as quietly as possible, but at the point of the initial impalement we could hear her through the door moaning. We came in and found her and rushed her out of here to the ER. She'll be in surgery through the night and if she makes it, she'll be brought back here afterwards for recovery," he explained.

"Could the medication she was on have caused her to do this?" Olivia asked.

"She wasn't on any medication when she did it," he replied.

"Why not?" Casey asked.

"When she was first administered, she hadn't slept for five days, we medicated her with sedatives only…once she slept, she didn't seem to need them anymore."

"What about other meds?"

"We ran tests on her and based on our findings she didn't need any," another doctors answered.

"Well, after this, if she survives, will she be put on anything else?" Elliot asked.

"Like what? Some run-of-the-mill downer that'll leave her too drained of energy to do anything? Perfectly normal, mentally healthy people attempt suicide every day in this country, as oxymoronic as that sounds," the doctor told them, "It's our job to help make sure it doesn't happen again but that doesn't necessarily mean doping them up."

"Well what's going to happen to Toni now?" Olivia asked.

"That's going to depend on what happens during surgery," he answered, "At this point we don't know the extent of the damage."

Extent of the damage? Elliot thought, she had just tried to kill herself in a manner previously inconceivable to him who thought he had seen everything in his career, how much could be left besides damage?

* * *

The surgery had been a success and that was the only good news to come out of the tragedy. When Toni stabbed herself she had miraculously avoided her spinal cord, any major organs or arteries and was shortly returned to her room in the psyche ward. When Elliot came back to visit her a few days later, he was momentarily shocked by what the doctors had done to make sure she didn't harm herself, or anyone else. Her hands were bound by restraints which were attached to the bed rails so her arms were outstretched to the sides. She was kept on her stomach for the time being and appeared to be asleep. Elliot stepped further into the room and Toni stirred.

"Who is it?" she asked, appearing to still be doped up on something.

"Toni, it's me," Elliot answered as he went over to the bed.

She looked at him through the corner of her eye and remarked, "Get the hell out of my room."

But Elliot wasn't going anywhere; he took another step towards her and started to take off his jacket.

"Why did you do it, Toni?" he asked.

"Why? Take a look at me, Elliot," she replied, "What have I got to live for? They've even got me handcuffed to the damn bed now!"

"They want to make sure you don't hurt yourself again," Elliot told her.

She looked up at him with a defiant glare in her eyes, "It doesn't matter…I'll find another way to kill myself, they can't stop me indefinitely. My mother is dead, my father is never getting out of prison, I've been shuffled off to one crappy place after another my whole life, why shouldn't I end it all? What have I to look forward to? You saw my father, he doesn't want to see me, does he? You would've told me if he did want to."

How to answer that one?

"I want to die, and I'm going to…I haven't eaten a damn thing since they brought me out of the OR," she told Elliot, "And I'm not going to."

"You can't starve yourself," Elliot told her, "If you don't eat they're going to put a feeding tube in you…do you know what that's like? It's not comfortable, let me tell you that."

"They're not going to do that," Toni remarked in a defiant tone, "They can't force a person to accept medical care, it's outlawed by the Constitution."

"You watch them," Elliot replied, "They'll do it one of two ways, they'll either stick that plastic tube down your mouth or they're going to cut open your stomach, stick it in and stitch it shut so you can't take it out."

"You can't scare me, Elliot," she said, "The only thing that scares me is the idea of living like I am for another 60 years. I know why you can't accept this."

"Oh?"

"Because you think it means you failed. You promised to help me and when I needed help you couldn't do what I needed you to. Is that it? The old Catholic guilt working its ugly charm again? You arrested Tobias, that's what I needed you to do, he's dead now so he can't come after me again. That's the end of it."

"That's not the end of it otherwise you wouldn't be here in the mental hospital," Elliot told her, "And you extended your stay when you tried to kill yourself."

Toni shook her head and laid it back down against the pillow, "It doesn't matter, Elliot, in here, or out there, I have no life, I haven't had one for years. I wake up, I walk the streets, I find somebody to go home with, I pass out into complete blackness, then the cycle continues. That's no way to live, and it's the only way I know how. There's nothing left in this world for me to look forward to."

"And you think there's something to look forward to in death?" Elliot asked.

"If you're asking do I believe hell exists and that I'm going there," Toni said, "It doesn't matter because nothing can be worse than what I feel every day right now. Simultaneously I feel nothing, and I feel more pain than you can imagine. It would be a relief for me to die now, I just don't care about anything anymore."

Elliot was about ready to give up. As he turned to leave, he saw something through the corner of his eye. Turning back around and looking at Toni, he saw her start to shake.

"Are you cold?" he asked.

She didn't answer. Elliot pulled the top cover out of its tight corners and draped it over her arms where the rest of the blankets couldn't reach. Toni said nothing and did nothing and stayed in the same position she was in.

"Try and get some sleep," Elliot told her, "I'll see you tomorrow."

* * *

"I have to get back to Rikers and see Keller again," Elliot told Cragen when he clocked in for work the next morning.

"He already made it clear that he didn't want to see Toni, you think you can make him change his mind?" Cragen asked.

"It doesn't matter what he wants, Toni _needs_ to see him, he's the only thing she's got left in her life and she's ready to die because everything else she ever had is gone."

"They're not going to let Toni out of Bellevue until they're convinced she's no longer a threat to herself or others," Munch reminded him, "And you can't bust Keller out to visit her in the psycho ward."

"I know!" Elliot replied, "But I've got to try something."

"You've tried everything you can," Munch said.

"Well I've got to do something," Elliot told him, "Toni wants to kill herself and if something doesn't happen fast and soon, I'm convinced she will."

"Elliot, I know that you feel responsible for what happened with her…"

"I _am_ responsible," Elliot replied, "I'm the only one she could trust and I let her down."

"Elliot, you did what you could do," Cragen told him.

"It's not enough," he said, "She is suffering because her whole life, everybody just let her slip through the cracks, and the pain she's in now isn't going to end."

"She's beyond your help."

"No," Elliot shook his head, "Not yet…if I walk out on her now, leaving her as she is, I'm no better than every other bastard she ever knew who she couldn't trust. Captain, you didn't see her, you didn't see what's become of her life, what she's been reduced to. It's painful just to watch her, can you imagine what it's like being her, living every day the way she does? 17 years old, this is the best that her life's going to be."

"I know this is difficult for you to deal with because of your own daughters…"

"This isn't about them, I'm not even thinking about them here," Elliot said, "I'm thinking of Toni. I told her I would help her if she ever needed me…for eight years she decided I couldn't help her…then she finally comes to me, and I let her down."

"No, she came here telling you to arrest Tobias, you did."

"And he got her alone in that men's room and was tearing her clothes off and throwing her against the wall, he told her he was going to kill her, she had no choice in what she did!" Elliot told Cragen, "Now they've got her tied down to a bed 24 hours a day, she's not eating, they don't medicate her but every time I see her it's like she's strung out. She wants to die, she's waiting to die…but I think, if I can get her to see her father, get them to talk…maybe something will change. Maybe not but it's the only thing left that can be done for her."

There was a pause before Cragen responded, "You do what you have to."

* * *

Elliot returned to Rikers and asked to see Tony Keller. Once again the prisoner was hauled off to the visiting area and put behind a window of bullet proof glass to speak to Elliot.

"What do you want now?" he asked.

Elliot decided to cut to the chase, "Toni's in trouble…she needs to see you."

"No she doesn't," Tony replied, "She'll be fine without me."

"No she won't," Elliot told him, "She's tired of living, nobody in her life that gives a damn about her. You hear what happened to Wentworth?"

Keller didn't answer at first and then replied, "He got what was coming to him."

"Yeah? Well it was your daughter who broke his neck, and now they've got her locked up in the loony bin."

The look in Tony's eyes changed when he heard that, "What?"

"No, it gets better…a few days after she's administered into Bellevue, she gets a hold of a folding knife…she embeds the handle into the mattress and throws herself on it until it's buried into her back all the way up to the handle. She tried to kill herself once…and now she's doing it again, she's not eating anything, and by law they can't force her to have a feeding tube inserted…in any case I really don't think you want her being put through _that_ when it's not necessary," Elliot explained, "You're her last chance for any kind of peace in this life, you have to see your daughter, you have to talk to her."

"Oh," Keller started nodding his head, "So now you think I'm cut out for being around my own kid."

"This isn't about what I want," Elliot said.

"No but it's about what you think is best for her," Tony remarked, "You didn't think it was best for me to have anything to do with her before."

"I need a way to get your daughter out of Bellevue and into this room so she can talk to you…you have to try and talk some sense into her," Elliot said, "Her life is a shamble and she doesn't see it as getting any better."

Tony seemed to give serious consideration to what Elliot was saying, then he replied, "Well let me tell you something, _detective_, it's not going to get better if I'm involved in it. I'm sorry for what's happened to my daughter, but seeing me isn't going to help her."

"I can't believe you," Elliot said, "You say you love your daughter but you refuse to help her?"

"I don't give a damn what you think about me," Tony replied, "I _do_ love my daughter, and it's the best thing I can do for her _not_ to get involved in her life."

"I don't get you," Elliot told him, "You're going to let your daughter die without even trying to help her?"

"Oh," Keller laughed, "I'll help alright…when I'm dead I want you to take her something for me."

"What're you talking about?"

"You'll find out soon enough."

Keller ended the conversation and had a guard take him back to his cell upstairs. Elliot hung around for a while and listened to what some of the guards had to say about Tony Keller. His history in Rikers wasn't a pretty one but not a particularly gruesome one either.

Elliot couldn't help but feel that he had failed Toni yet again; but it seemed there truly was nothing left that he could do. As he started to head for the prison's exit, he heard a scuffle from above. He, like everybody else on the ground floor, looked up and saw Tony Keller push away the guard who was trying to put him back in his cell and he reached the railing and stood up on it and looked down at everybody.

"Hey detective!" he called down, "Look out below!"

Before anybody could react, Tony Keller jumped off the railing and plummeted to the floor. It was a particularly sickening sound that was made when his body hit the floor, his blood splattered out in all directions and it appeared that he had broken his neck. Everybody was screaming, the guards closed in around the body, and Elliot stood in the middle of the room looking on at the sight before him in complete shock.

* * *

Toni knew what had happened when he returned to her hospital room. Elliot didn't know how she found out so quickly but she had.

"I'm very sorry about what happened," he told her.

"Why did he do it?" she asked, trying to maintain a neutral, neither caring nor upset tone in her voice.

"I don't know," Elliot replied, "He just…I looked up and I saw him climb onto the railing, and the next thing I knew, he jumped off…I don't know why."

"Well," Toni said, "This should just about complete it…for the first time in as long as I can remember, I finally feel something other than the gnawing emptiness, and now…" she couldn't keep everything inside of her anymore and she broke down crying, "Now the only thing I can feel is this excruciating pain."

Elliot watched as she writhed helplessly against the restraints keeping her tied to the rails. He reached over and placed his hand high up on her back to make sure he didn't accidentally touch the area that was still healing.

"Toni, I am so sorry about this," he told her, "I tried to get him to talk to you but he didn't want you coming to see him."

"Oh it just makes sense!" she said through her tears, "Nobody ever wanted me, even my own father never wanted me!"

A long time ago Elliot would've believed that, without a second thought, but now he knew otherwise.

"That's not true, Toni," he told her. He walked around towards the head of the hospital bed so she could see him. He reached into his jacket and took out an envelope, "One of the guards gave this to me before I left. They said he gave direct orders when he died for me to bring this to you." Of course he knew she wouldn't be able to see for herself what it was and he couldn't get her out of the restraints, "I'll read it to you."

He tore open the seal and took out a sheet of paper, unfolded it and read it. "'Dear Toni, when you read this, I'll be dead. I want to apologize for everything that's happened to you; I've spent eight years in this place and every day I accept the fact that I'm responsible for what you've been put through. I don't expect you to forgive me, I know I don't deserve it. I know this whole mess started because I left you with Carl...if I had known then what kind of man he was, believe me I wouldn't have taken you there. It was a long time ago and I thought I could trust him. I needed somebody to watch you until I could return. I knew that yours odds of having a good life once your mother died were slim, so I wanted to make sure that no matter what happened, you would be financially taken care of. I managed to get a hold of $60,000…don't worry, I obtained it legally. Maybe not morally but legally. But that's where everything went south because three guys from the old neighborhood found out and got their hands on it and tried to skip town with it.

I tracked them down and got it back…but these guys knew about you and threatened me with numerous things that might happen to you if I were to give them any trouble. You were the only thing I had left…the idea of anything bad happening to you was too much for me and I just lost it. Yes, I killed those three men, to protect you. But I knew the cops would come for me before too long, so I took the money and left. I knew if I was found with the money on me, the cops would take it and you'd never see it. I wasn't able to find out where you went to live once ACS got you; for eight years I didn't know where you were or how you were doing, and that just about killed me. Now I know where you are so I can tell you now, and hope that in finding the money you'll have a new shot at life. I buried it in a metal canister in your mother's grave. Assuming the grave hasn't been disturbed it should still be there, and it's yours.

Now that I'm dead the truth will be able to come out about everything. I never told anybody the real reason why I killed the men I did, because I worried if word got out what they planned to do to you, some other sicko would come looking for you as well. I know if I had told the cops and the D.A., I might have been able to get off on a lesser sentence for temporary insanity or defense of family or what the hell ever they call it, but I didn't want anybody finding out about you and targeting you. Up till now I haven't told a soul about the money or where it's buried, so this way it'll be in your possession and yours only. I hope with this money you'll be able to start a new life and forget about me and all the trouble I've caused you. Maybe you won't believe it but I love you, I always did, and I just see the greatest thing I can do for you is not get you any more involved with me than you already are. I loved your mother and I love you, but I must atone for what I've done and I'm not afraid of facing hell if it means making your life any easier. I know we won't see each other again, so now I'll say goodbye.

Signed: Tony Keller,'

It's dated yesterday," Elliot told her, "Olivia and Munch are out finding your mother's grave at the cemetery to look for the money. When they find it they're going to check it out to make sure that it's not from some robbery, if the serial numbers check out, they'll hand it over to you."

Toni looked up at him and he could tell she didn't know what to think anymore. With a sigh of defeat, she collapsed against the pillows and tried to make sense of what was going on. Elliot's cell went off and he answered it, "Stabler."

"Elliot," it was Warner, "I heard the news about Keller. They just sent him down here for an autopsy, he just arrived about five minutes ago."

"So why're you calling me?" Elliot asked.

"There's a problem," Warner told him.

Oh what else could go wrong? "What is it?" he wanted to know.

"…Your stiff is breathing," she answered.


	7. Chapter 7

Author's Note: Found out that a chapter for a different story had been uploaded in place of this one. Sorry for the mix-up. Hope you enjoy.

"It can't be possible that Tony's still alive," Elliot said as he looked at the man, unconscious and confined to a hospital bed, "I saw him fall, he was dead."

As soon as Elliot had gotten Warner's call, he rushed to the hospital where Tony was being treated in. He'd hurried to the hospital room they said he was in and found Melinda Warner already there waiting for him.

"I've heard before of people who were declared dead and then awoke just prior to the autopsy beginning, but I've never seen it for myself until now," Warner said, "When he fell, the impact of hitting the ground stopped his heart."

"So how'd it start again?" Elliot asked.

"Nobody knows, but his injuries sustained from the fall proved to be more superficial than they looked."

"But what about the blood?"

"Tony Keller's had ulcers for several years which were not properly treated in prison…it seems they ruptured when he hit the floor. Considering the height he fell and the sudden stop he made, it's a wonder he's not more seriously injured than he is."

"But then why all this?" Elliot gestured to the machines Tony was hooked up to, monitors, oxygen, lots of lights and noise and tubes.

"He hasn't regained consciousness yet but the doctors suspect he will…until then it's mostly a precaution," Warner explained, "They've never seen a case quite like this before."

"Will he be able to walk?" Elliot asked.

"Yes, he's very fortunate in that nothing was broken."

Elliot looked down at this man who for so long had been a living terror, and now he no more looked like a threat to anybody than anything. On his way to the hospital he'd contacted Casey and told her what he'd found out about Tony. She couldn't believe it but said there was new ground for his old case.

"The D.A.'s going to look into his story…if they think he was telling the truth in that letter to Toni, they're going to vindicate him. I just don't get it, he went through all this trouble to protect his daughter…but she never _was_ protected," Elliot said.

"Hindsight's 20/20," Melinda told him, "I mean can you imagine going to prison on a life sentence that you didn't have to, because you think it means protecting your daughter, who you'll never see again?"

"And she never hated him, never blamed him for anything that's happened to her," Elliot realized, "How could he have known that?"

"Who says he did know it?" Warner asked, "Lots of people do things for people who hate them…now being his daughter, he couldn't hate her but if he blamed himself for everything she's been put through, he probably figured so did she…and he was still willing to go through with it all, for her."

* * *

"So this is hell," Tony said when he awoke and found Elliot hovering over him, "Worse than I thought."

"You didn't get that lucky," Elliot said, "You survived."

"Great, so what're you doing here?" Keller asked.

"As soon as you can get on your feet again," Elliot told him, "You need to go down to the mental ward and pay your daughter a visit. They've got her strapped to the bed where she's been for days, and since she found out you jumped and she thought you were dead…it's just about killed her."

Tony tried to shift around in the bed and found it too painful for the time being; he grabbed at the oxygen tubes and tried to disconnect them, commenting, "Get these damn tubes out of my nose, I can breathe on my own."

He looked up at the ceiling and said in a low, tired voice, "I love my daughter, detective…I honestly thought she'd be better off without me."

"I think you're the only thing that's kept her alive these past eight years," Elliot said.

Keller took in a long breath and noisily let it out and rubbed at his eyes and said, "Boy oh boy…I sure screwed things up for her."

Elliot wanted to say something to the man but he wasn't sure what. Finally he decided to let his paternal side break through and he told Tony, "Look, Keller, I've got four kids myself, I think I understand why you did what you did…I honestly don't know if I wouldn't have done the same if I was in your position."

"That's comforting," Tony dryly remarked as he pulled the blankets up higher.

"The D.A.'s going to look into your case based on the new evidence provided in your letter to Toni, see if she can't get your sentence revoked."

"What evidence?"

"They're going to have you examined by psychiatrists to determine if you were suffering from an extreme emotional disturbance at the time you killed those men."

"Eight years later?"

"Everybody knows you're disturbed, but nobody ever caught this…never diagnosed it…I think they'll find exactly what they're looking for," Elliot said.

"And then what?" Tony asked, "I've spent eight years in lockup, they're going to let me go just like that?"

"Probably, especially considering that your daughter is still a minor who hasn't been registered in the children's services system for years and she still needs a guardian to watch over her."

Tony laughed and said, "Given everything she's already been through I don't suppose I could screw up her life much more than it already is."

* * *

When Tony was declared well enough to make a trip over to the other side of the hospital, he and Elliot went back to Toni's room but were surprised when they walked in and saw an orderly changing a set of bloody sheets.

"What happened?" Elliot asked, "Where's Toni?"

The woman looked up and saw the two men, pausing a minute noting how much like one another they looked, and pointed to the bathroom door, "Taking a shower."

"You took the cuffs off her?" Elliot asked, "She must be making an improvement."

"Not really…we had to get her off the bed to take off the sheets."

"What happened, did her stitches open up?" Elliot asked.

"No."

"Oh," Elliot, having a wife and three daughters, could very easily imagine what the problem had been then, "Will you tell her we're here?"

The orderly went over to the door, pounded on it once and bellowed, "Miss Keller, there are some people here to see you."

"I'll be out in a minute," came her reply over the sound of rushing water.

The orderly put a clean set of sheets on the bed and pushed a laundry cart past the two men and left the room. Tony turned to Elliot and said, "So tell me how bad she looks these days so I won't be too surprised."

"Well let's see, she got her face cut up, she impaled herself on a knife, she hasn't eaten in over a week…but she's still about the same as she was."

"That's easy for you to say, detective, I haven't seen her since she was a little girl."

Elliot went over to the bathroom door and listened, he didn't hear the water anymore. "Hey Toni," he called in.

"Elliot?"

"How're you doing, Toni?"

"Alright, Elliot."

"Can I come in?"

"I guess so."

Elliot turned the knob and entered the bathroom. Toni was sitting on the floor beside the shower, wrapped up in a couple of towels, looking about dead with exhaustion.

"How're you feeling?" he asked as he crouched down to look her in the eyes.

"Tired…can you believe it, Elliot? All the nuts they have shut up in this madhouse, all the medical and hygienic supplies they have to have on hand, and there's not a single pad in the whole damn hospital that fits me."

"Uh," Elliot looked back at the door and then back at Toni, "There's someone outside to see you."

"I'm not talking to anymore psychiatrists, all they do is get me into trouble," she said.

"It's not a psychiatrist," Elliot told her as he got up and went over to the door.

"Who then?" she asked.

"Don't get up," Elliot grabbed the doorknob and opened the door slightly, "Come in."

Toni heard the person come in; opening her eyes she first saw a pair of big sneakers, looking up she saw a pair of long legs in blue jeans, and looking up even further she saw…

"Hello, Toni."

Her eyes widened and her jaw fell. "Daddy?"

She tried to stand up but fell back on the floor. Tony knelt down by her and locked his big, strong arms around her, "Baby," he kissed her near the crown of her head, "I'm so sorry, about everything."

Toni looked up at her father in amazement and shock and she said to him as she brought her arms up around his back, "They told me you were dead."

"You want to know something? I think I was," he replied, "I don't remember much but I saw a bright light," confidentially he told her, "But I think they were getting the bonfire ready for me."

"Are you alright now?" Toni asked.

"Yeah," he nodded, "I think so…" he looked her up and down and added, "Just look at you, you look like your mother when I met her."

Weak and tired though she was, Toni managed to slap her father in the face and said to him, "You going on about bright lights and fire, you should know better than to lie to me, it's a sin."

He laughed weakly and responded, "God, I've missed you, Toni."

"I guess I missed you too," she replied, then added, uncertainty in her voice, "But what's going to happen now?"

* * *

"The money checks out," Munch told Elliot when he returned to the station one night, "All the numbers were checked and none of them trace back to any robberies…so we know in that much that he got his hands on it legally, maybe not honestly but legally."

"So Toni gets the money now?" Olivia asked, "$60,000 at 17 years old, not too bad."

"Well, given the hell she's been put through, it's hardly a consolation," Elliot said.

"Well, at least whatever she has to go through now, she won't have to go alone."

"Tony's been vindicated, Toni's been released, now they're both staying in a room in a motel off near the highway," Elliot said, "They're waiting for the money to clear so they can get the hell out."

"And go where?" Fin asked.

"Well Toni called me earlier, she said that as soon as they get the money, they're going to hop a Greyhound getting out of the state…she didn't say where they're going but they plan to stay gone for a long time…and she told me, with that money her father put away, she's going to try and find a doctor who can work on her cheek."

Elliot looked and saw Olivia at her desk, looking like a cat who swallowed a canary.

"What?" he asked.

She looked up at him and remarked, "You did it, Elliot, you did just what you said you would."

"What do you mean?"

"You promised Toni you'd help her and you did, and now she has a family again."

"That was dumb luck," he told her, "There's no way I could've made this happen on purpose."

"Well, whatever it was, it worked," she said, "I'm sure Toni's very grateful for everything you've done to help her."

"Yeah, I suppose so," Elliot replied, not sounding too sure about that.

* * *

It was six A.M. and as pitch dark out as midnight still. Toni and her father were standing around the bus terminal waiting for their bus to come up for departure. They weren't easy to find but they were easy to spot given that they were both dressed in all the clothes that they owned, and that was mainly blue jeans and matching jean jackets, and they carried one small suitcase each. Toni turned around and spotted him before he had a chance to say anything.

"You just about missed us, Elliot," she said, "The bus takes off in about 10 minutes."

"I know," he said as he came up to them, "I just came to say goodbye."

"Goodbye," Tony bluntly said.

"Elliot, I want to thank you for helping us," Toni said, "We couldn't have done this without you."

"Well," he said as he looked at the two of them, "I hope you two will be happy."

"We'll be back, Elliot," Toni told him, "This isn't the end…we're just going down south to somewhere warm and then we'll come back in the summer, I'll come and see you again."

"I'll look forward to it," he said, "I hope you two have a good time wherever you're going."

Toni reached up and wrapped her arms around Elliot and squeezed him for a second as she said, quietly so just he would hear, "Thanks, Elliot."

"You inherited your father's grip, I see," Elliot said when she pulled away.

"Come on, Toni," Tony told her, "We don't want to miss the bus."

Toni picked up her suitcase and waved to Elliot, "Bye, Elliot."

He watched them walk away but after a couple seconds, he went after them.

"Toni," he said, "Have you thought about what you want to do with your life yet?"

She turned and looked at him, "Not particularly, why?"

"Well," he leaned into her and told her, "The D.A. says he thinks you'd make a good lawyer someday."

Toni smiled at him knowingly and commented, "Your D.A.'s Catholic, isn't he? He's going to catch purgatory for that one." With a laugh she turned around and walked off with her father.

Elliot watched them get on the bus and after a few minutes watched the bus pull away and disappear down the road. He had no doubt that the two of them would return to New York someday, but he personally hoped that he wouldn't see either of them for a long time. Two people had just been given back their lives, it was time they got to spend them with each other.


End file.
